Create Rules that Make You Feel Successful, Not Unsuccessful
February 16, 2010
I attended a private high school named Cranbrook-Kingswood. There was a lot of competition to get accepted. A couple of years before I started there, the founder of Little Caesar’s Pizza, Mike Ilitch, made a large donation to the school with instructions to build an indoor hockey rink. Mike loved hockey, and his son had also been very good at the sport. I believe he may have also “required” the school, as part of his gift, to have an exceptional hockey team.
The school went out and recruited the best hockey players from all over the United States and Canada and gave them free tuition, room and board and, most of all, admission to the high school. In order to ensure these same kids could graduate, the school created special classes for some of them in mathematics and other disciplines they could pass. I want to be clear that several of the hockey players were extremely intelligent and did not need these classes. However, many of them had come from backgrounds where athletics, and not academics, had always been stressed.
I first found out about this special program when I became friends with a kid from my neighborhood who played hockey for my school. He had been a star hockey player in his public high school his first year and was living a dream of sorts. He loved hockey and was doing fine in school, and the girls loved him. One day after practice, a scout from my high school approached him and told him if he wanted to attend private school and play hockey there he could do so and tuiton would be free. He accepted. My friend and his family were incredulous because they had known other kids who were far more intelligent who had applied and gone through a rigorous admissions process and were not able to get into the school.
My friend’s instant admission to the school was incredible to me because it took months for me to get into the school. I had to take tests, come in for interviews – even my parents were interviewed.
The guy I was friends with was kicked out of the school for bad grades after one year. He was a big handsome guy who the girls in his school really liked a lot. After getting kicked out he really struggled, however. His self esteem dropped and he migrated into aggressive partying. He also had several auto accidents while drunk. I think he even stopped playing hockey.
Before going to the school he’d been a star hockey player and was very happy with his life. After going to the school, he became very unhappy. The more I got to know him, the more I realized he was unhappy because he was not on the path to attend a prestigious college, was not smart enough to pass the classes in a private school, and, despite being a good hockey player and getting a scholarship to the school, he had failed. It was as if being in a good environment had taught him how to be unhappy with his life and who he was.
At Cranbrook-Kingswood he learned a bunch of rules about what success meant – ones completely different from the rules he’d known before attending the school. Rules like:
- It is important to do well in school; and,
- You are only successful if you are on the path to going to an important college.
In the environment from which he’d come, none of this mattered. All of a sudden, in this new environment, all of it mattered, and he felt bad about himself and self-destructed. Imagine having the rug pulled out from under you like that. It must have felt horrible. He went from all to nearly nothing just based on the rules he had learned.
Over the years I met many of these hockey players, and I came to believe that, for many of them, going to this school did not serve them well. While they could have been extremely happy in most environments, going to a school where academics and getting into college were stressed so much set them up for feeling badly about themselves. They learned that to be successful, you need to do well in school and not in hockey. I am not sure how well these rules served them. I think they learned to think about themselves in a way that was not empowering.
As the head of a legal recruiting firm, I used to spend several hours a day reviewing resumes of attorneys who were applying for jobs for which our firm was recruiting. In addition, I would take phone call after phone call from these same attorneys about various jobs and their attempts to get a position. Sometimes these attorneys would show up in our office and want to talk about getting a job.
The hopes and dreams of attorneys are something I have come to understand quite well. No matter if the attorney is in law school, has been practicing several years, or is a partner in a large law firm, there are certain “rules” most attorneys measure themselves by that tell them if they are successful or not. These rules most often involve:
- The size of the firm they are working at.
- How prestigious this firm is considered by the legal community.
- How much money their firm is paying relative to other firms.
- The quality of law schools and pedigrees the attorneys have at the firm for which they’re working.
- After several years, whether or not they are a partner in a prestigious law firm.
- When they are a partner in a law firm, whether or not they have a lot of business.
This is, of course, not the rule for every attorney but it is for most of them. For the most part, attorneys judge how successful they are based on how they stack up under this criterion.
One of the hardest things about going to a top law school is the competition inside these schools is quite intense for the top jobs. Every year students in these schools compete for the jobs paying the most at the largest law firms. At the top law schools a higher percentage of the students get the jobs with the highest paid and best firms than at the lower ranked law schools.
While I do not know the exact numbers, I believe over 85% of the law students graduating each year will not get the jobs with large law firms that pay top market salaries. Instead, they get jobs (if they get one) in smaller law firms that pay 50% or less than what the jobs pay in the largest, and most prestigious law firms. In the smaller law firms the work is most often for smaller and less prestigious companies, as well. Nevertheless, the attorneys inside these law firms are doing work that is essentially no different than in the largest law firms.
I have been in the legal recruiting industry for a long time. What I have noticed is the attorneys from the best law schools are always governing their lives and their career with the following rule: “I will not be successful unless I am practicing law with a large law firm.” In addition, attorneys with small law firms who went to bad law schools spend a lot of effort trying to get into the larger law firms. They, too, do not feel successful unless they are practicing law with a large law firm. Somewhere along the line they picked up the “rule” that they will not be successful until they are working in a large law firm.
Most legal recruiters around the United States spend their time trying to help attorneys realize the dream of working in a large law firm or remaining employed in a large law firm environment. Attorneys panic when they feel they may not be able to remain employed in a large law firm. Because the “rules” most attorneys have about their careers and lives require them to be in a large law firm, many of them are extremely unhappy when they are not doing so. They literally use this rule to set themselves up for lifelong unhappiness.
It’s crazy. Instead of being happy practicing law, a lot of attorneys spend their career feeling like they have failed. You need to have rules for your life and career that empower you.
I try to spend my time around people who are the happiest. What I have noticed is the people who are the happiest have the fewest rules about the way things should be, and who they should be. If you ask yourself what it takes to be successful you may say:
- I need this kind of car.
- I want this sort of job.
- I want this sort of house.
- I want this sort of mate (or, for many people, I want my mate to be a certain way).
These are the rules many people require of themselves for being happy and feeling successful.
Other people may just tell themselves they will be successful and happy as long as they are alive.
This is the most amazing thing. Who do you think is happier? The person who is happiest is the person with the easiest rules to meet and the least stringent rules.
You determine your level of happiness and success based on the rules you set for yourself. If you set rules which are difficult to meet and you will never meet, you will experience lots of pain. If you set rules for yourself rules that are easy to meet you will experience lots of fulfillment. It is up to you what you do with your rules. You are in complete control of how you feel about yourself and whether or not you believe you are successful.
My definition of success requires that I experience very little pain and tons of pleasure. I set rules which empower me rather than hurt me. I set high standards for myself, but require very few rules in order to be happy. People who feel the most successful typically have the fewest rules.
We are constantly asking ourselves the question “What does this mean?” and do this on a daily basis. If we see someone smile at us, we assume they are nice and friendly. If we see someone grimace at us, we assume they do not like us. We have rules for our environments and how to interpret the things happening all around us. The rules we formulate about the world and our surroundings have a giant impact on how we feel. In the case of the hockey player, he learned rules that suddenly cast a shadow over what was a very happy and successful life. Have you allowed rules to do this to you?
What I want for you is to use rules to make yourself happy. I want you to have fewer rules and make success something you are always feeling, instead of constantly needing to be something different. The more success you feel, the more good things will come your way. Like attracts like. You need to feel good about yourself and your life, and the more of this you feel, the more you will attract. The more negative you feel, the more negativity you will attract.
When I look around me, I see so many people who do not allow themselves to be happy due to the rules they set for themselves.
I live in a large city and, when I go to small towns, people tell me they are unhappy and wished they lived somewhere else. When I meet people who went to bad schools, they tell me they wish they had gone to better schools. I used to hire lots of writers in our offices in Los Angeles who had experience in the entertainment industry. I stopped doing this long ago because they all felt lousy about themselves and never gave their work their all. They had “rules” that said they were only successful and doing well if they were selling huge screenplays to major motion picture studios. Anything less was failure. Consequently, they never gave the job with our company their all.
Your rules for what it means to be successful will largely control how you feel about yourself and your job. One of the worst things that can happen to someone is to be in an atmosphere where they are surrounded by the most successful people imaginable when they are not the same way. I remember once speaking with a man who had grown up, been friends with, and gone to school with a couple of people who ended up becoming very famous—one was a United States Senator, the other was a governor of a huge state, and the other was the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. This person had never been anywhere near as successful as these people, but he still had a good career. How do you think this person felt about himself? Instead of feeling like he had a good career, he could only compare himself with the people he knew who had become incredibly successful. He felt like a failure his entire life. What a lousy rule to have for ourselves.
What has to happen for you to feel successful?
Rules control so much. They literally control our sanity and how we feel about ourselves on a daily basis. Every upset you have ever had in your life with another person is probably due to them violating some rule you had about such and such, or vice versa.
I have very few, if any arguments, with my wife about anything. However, if she gets excited while talking about something while eating, she will often speak while chewing. When I was growing up my mother used to go ballistic and get incredibly angry with me if I opened my mouth and spoke while chewing food. She would call it a sign of disrespect and, in one case, I think she actually made me sit next to the dog on the floor while eating as punishment. In fact, my mom was so angry, it was as if I had committed a crime.
Years later, I find myself also getting angry when I see people I am close to eating with their mouths open. I take it as a sign of disrespect, among other things. I want to be clear that I know this is completely irrational. The only reason I am reacting this way is because of the rules I learned when I was younger. Here I am, decades later, having a happy meal with my wife and suddenly this rule about the way things should be comes up and prevents me from having a good time. Do you have any rules which are impacting your life like this? I bet you do.
Make the rules you have for your life and your career empower you. Make your rules represent success and not failure. You need to feel good about this life and your life. Work hard and enjoy your life. Do not allow your rules to hold you back.
Your Job is a Game: Make Your Opponents External
December 29, 2009
What You Will Learn
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After being in the workforce for many years, I’ve come to realize that all of our jobs are, quite simply, games. In every job you have ever had you are part of a game. Your ability to play the game and be part of the team will determine your success or failure. The ability of your employer to externalize the game and the opponent will determine the success or failure of the enterprise. Games consist of rules, freedoms, barriers, and opponents.
Every organization has a certain set of rules by which it operates. These rules determine how you should do your work. If you violate these rules, you can be kicked out of the game (fired) much like a soccer player can be ejected from a game for doing something improper. Your employer will typically have a set of rules for when you are supposed to be at work, how the work is to be done, and the number of tasks you are required to complete (in a sport we might call these points).
Every organization and business also has a series of freedoms and barriers. The freedoms are the actions you can take and the things you are allowed to do. The barriers are the things you cannot do. The freedoms are given much like a sport assigns different freedoms. For example, in soccer the goalie is the only one allowed to touch the ball with his hands (a specially designated freedom), while the other players are not allowed to do so (a barrier). In corporations, different people typically have different rights, depending on their given position within the corporation.
The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. If you don’t have an opponent, it’s not a game. It’s just practice.
One of the most interesting things I have seen in the workforce is that organizations tend to have opponents who are both external and, unfortunately, internal. A business and its people are “fired-up” and motivated primarily by the presence of outside opponents, and the need to overcome them. Businesses and their people also become more cohesive by coming together against their opponents. If this does not occur, the organization most often fails.
Most companies have a series of external opponents. For example, Yahoo!’s external opponent would be Google and vice versa. Amazon’s would be Barnes & Noble. Apple’s is Microsoft. The presence of external opponents serves to bring people within corporations together to fight for a common purpose, and to motivate the people in the company to work hard and believe in what they are doing. Fighting the good fight helps motivate people to get up in the morning and to get excited about going to work.
Organizations generally operate under the belief there is an external opponent to be fought (i.e., the “established company”) in a given space. However, if there is no established force for the organization to fight against, problems often develop.
Another issue that develops in virtually all companies – especially companies with no external opponent – is that people inside the company start manufacturing internal opponents instead of external ones. This most often occurs in companies without well-defined external competitors. In my opinion, the internal opponent phenomenon is among the more important things to understand when it comes to work and your success in both getting and keeping a job.
Several years ago, I started getting calls from associates in a large law firm in Los Angeles that, at the time, was called Troop Meisinger. This was a very successful law firm that was also considered a very good place to work in Los Angeles. While I am not aware of the specifics of how the firm was run, many parts of the firm had been pieced together from numerous other law firms (i.e., groups had joined from other firms or through mergers). When these groups joined, they were often viewed as competitors for the firm’s work and profits, and were treated as outsiders by the senior staff attorneys. Eventually, the firm became a group of numerous factions that were all working against one another. Instead of competing against outside law firms, all of these factions were competing against one another.
The calls that came to me from the firm’s associates were always about a different internal opponent within the firm. With so many internal opponents, the firm eventually imploded. When many of these groups found new jobs at other firms, they started creating the same sort of problems out of habit and did a lot of damage to the firms they joined.
As the old adage states, “Two is company and three is a crowd.” This is often true. A group of two people often collaborates better than a group of three. I think what tends to happen in a group of three is two of the people will find a slight to major degree of fault with the third person and, as a consequence, will come together to exclude the third person in some way.
The same thing happens in many organizations. Someone always seems to be on “the outs.” When someone is on “the outs”, they become an opponent to the group. It is like an athlete who is playing badly. The team members start talking about how this player is harming the team’s overall chances for success. The team may make the decision to sideline the player unless he or she changes and rises to the occasion.
I read somewhere that every year General Electric ranks its employees, and that the employees in the bottom 10 percent each year are given one year to improve. If they fall into the same bottom 10 percent the next year, they are dismissed. This is a method by which the company ensures that people who are not performers are eventually excluded from the team.
Unhealthy organizations can also find opponents in a paranoid way from time to time. These organizations allow rumors to flourish and enemies proliferate. If a manager arbitrarily fires people (regardless of whether or not they have been playing by the rules), people in the organization may start manufacturing internal opponents, often for no reason at all. No one knows who can be trusted in unhealthy organizations, and the process can get out of control.
This brings us back to you, and how you can find success in your career. You do not want to imagine the people you are working with as opponents, but as teammates. Externalize the opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. You want to ensure you are playing by the rules in your company, and that you are always seen as part of the team. If you’re not, then the team will quickly turn against you.
When you are interviewing for a position, you need to stress you’ll be part of the team, not someone who will be excluded from the team. When you are doing a job, you need to do everything within your power to ensure you’re always winning favor with the team, and that you are an asset. This means you should be doing things publicly that demonstrate you’re trying to help the team. You should also never speak negatively of your team members.
One of the best ways to tell if someone will be good at a job is to look at their employment stability. This is even more important than where someone went to school, how well they did in school, or even how prestigious their last employer was. Employment stability shows the ability to be a successful team player. Working successfully with most employers is like avoiding a hot ball that is always moving around. If the ball touches you, you will lose favor with the team, and you’ll be ejected from the game. The best workers are always the people who have the most stability, and who are able to consistently avoid the hot ball. I think this has a lot to do with the simple fact they’re able to work well with a team.
The people who have the most employment stability have very similar profiles. These people join “teams” rather than get jobs. When they are looking for a new job, it is usually because the owner of the company retired, or due to some other factor beyond their control. When they are hired, it is almost like their presence alone brings positivity to the organization they are joining. I have seen the résumés of people who have joined one company after another that failed. I’ve hired people like this and it’s almost as if they’ve brought a cancer to our company. They are negative and polarizing. I wonder sometimes if extremely negative people inside a corporation can actually cause that company to fail.
When I observe people who’ve had a lot of employment stability, I notice they never participate when people start speaking negatively of others. They simply do not get involved. I’m amazed at how well they navigate the waters and stay employed when others around them do not. It is also worth noting the people who tend to do well are also the people who consistently work hard and play by the rules. The team always views them as valuable players.
In order to become employed and stay employed you want to be part of the team. You do not want to be on the outs with the team. Instead of talking about internal opponents, find external ones to concentrate on. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work toward a common goal. In order for your company to succeed it’s important it has an external opponent to drive it towards victory.
My career advice is to leave it to other people to get involved in the political innuendos and other negative goings-on in your company. Work hard and do not participate in the politics. This is a sure way for you to score big in your career.
Communicate Your Value: How to Get a Job and Keep It
December 19, 2009
What You Will Learn
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One of the best ways to realize the importance of communication is through simple services, such as getting a shoeshine, ordering hotel room service, or taking advantage of valet parking. In these situations the people providing the service must act quickly to show their value and win a large tip. If they fail to show their value, they risk selling themselves short and losing out on the extra cash. You can always tell how good someone is at these sorts of jobs because they communicate their value, or lack thereof, usually early on in their interactions.
Several years ago I was getting my shoes shined at a Washington, DC airport.
As the shine progressed, I noticed I was being treated to a ridiculous amount of attention. The man used a modified common contractor’s drill to buff my shoes, in addition to other specialized tools. He painted the heels with what appeared to be an artist’s brush and, as the shine progressed, it was one thing after another like this. Finally, towards the end of the shine, he sprayed something on my shoes, took out a match, and very briefly lit them on fire! It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. He put out the fire in less than a second and made a statement about how this would really make a major difference in the shine. The shoes ended up looking fantastic and I gave the man a giant tip. I’m sure he got tips like that all day long. The shoeshine man did everything he could to communicate his value.
Communicating our value is something we all must do to keep our jobs. We must also do the same in order to get jobs. Imagine if this man interviewed for a shoeshine position and described his approach to the job. Imagine an average shoeshine man doing the same. Who would you hire?
One of the biggest mistakes people often make when interviewing for jobs (or in their current jobs) is failing to communicate their value frequently and in detail. This kind of communication is one of the most important things in our careers. If you go above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis, or have become aware of cost-saving measures or new sources of revenue, you owe it to yourself and the company to communicate this. It is extremely important that you communicate with your company and supervisors at all times.
If you were an employer, you would expect nothing less from your employees, right?
Why? Because the company you work for, or want to work for, cannot possibly know the multitude of ways in which you can or already contribute. The company cannot know all the improvements you can or already make to its bottom line. You need to make the people around you aware of who you are and what you can do. If people don’t know this information, you are doing yourself a disservice. People lose jobs all the time because their superiors do not know who they are or how they are helping the company. Don’t let this happen to you!
Earlier this week, I saw an employee (who works as a driver) sitting outside my office, using a computer. Sitting next to him was a manager. The driver appeared to be surfing the Internet and not doing much else. I watched this go on for a couple of hours as I passed by now and then. Later in the day, I called the manager into my office. I was very close to firing either the manager or the driver–or both. I could not believe that someone was being paid to sit there and surf the Internet.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He says his finger hurts,” the manager said.
I proceeded to question the manager about whether the driver could work or not. The manager said, “I assume he cannot.” I knew the driver had cut his finger earlier in the week, but I also knew it was not serious. I met with the driver to discuss the situation as well. What essentially happened in this exchange cast a very bad light on both of the employees.
First, the manager assumed the driver could not do any other work, because he had a hurt finger. The manager did not communicate with the driver further to see if there might be any other type of work he could do; He simply decided to end the conversation there, without giving the driver any other work to do.
Second, the driver did not ask for any more work. The driver simply decided that, since he was not given any more work to do, he would just sit there and do nothing. I know this driver quite well and he is very talented. He knows about carpentry and has many other useful skills. Obviously the driver’s wounded finger did not preclude him from playing around on the computer.
In many companies, both of these men would have lost their jobs that day. The driver should have spoken up and stated that he did not have anything to do. The manager should have spoken up and either found another task for him to do, or sent him home. Both men should have handled this situation much differently. They both failed to act as responsible employees.
It is like this with your job too–regardless of what you do. All employers want things done efficiently. No one wants to waste time or money. By communicating clearly you are able to avoid the appearance of inefficiency. For this reason, nothing is more important than effective communication.
Communication goes much further than this simple example. Communication is important in the highest levels of executive suites. Communication is needed to ensure that businesses are healthy and that you are preserving your job through positive efforts, and through garnering appreciation for those efforts. Effective communication can help you to know exactly where you are going and what is going to happen in your career. Most importantly, communication can help you ensure that you are always in a good position with your company–and if you are not, you can usually get out while there’s still time.
A couple of years ago, one of our businesses at Career Mission dealt primarily with student loans (and it still does, although much less so than in the past). In running this business I was always a little circumspect about its long-term prospects, mostly because a lot of the business was dependent upon major forces that were outside our control: (1) government programs to subsidize student loans from private lenders, and (2) the value of those loans as securities on Wall Street. Both of these eventually went away, and following this the student loan business suffered a great deal.
Had I been an employee at the time, I certainly could have benefited from knowing this information. I could have asked to be given work in other departments or divisions of Career Mission, which were not as dependent upon student loans. For example, I might have asked to work in an employment-based business as well. In short, I could have communicated with my superiors, relaying my value and how it could translate to other, healthier areas of the company.
The mortgage business in the United States was also built on the value of being able to sell securities (i.e., packaging loans into bundles and selling them as a group). Imagine if you worked for one of these mortgage companies two years ago. Down the street from our office in Pasadena is the shell of IndyMac, a former giant bank that did tons of these mortgages. The mortgage business of IndyMac is now completely gone. What if you had worked in this bank a couple of years ago? Would you have been asking questions about the bank’s long-term viability? What would you have done for the company and for yourself as the tide began to shift?
The ability to communicate your value is part of the big picture. You need to communicate your value but also understand where you and the value of your work fits into the grand scheme. Is your value to the organization dependent upon forces outside of your control? Is your job dependent upon the government like the student loans were? You need to understand these things well in order to assess the viability of your company and your employment.
Once you interview with a company–or even send in a résumé, you do not have anything to lose by communicating your value. A little-known job search secret is that a significant percentage of people get jobs each year using non-traditional methods to communicate with potential employers. For example, calling before sending a résumé is a great way to get the employer’s attention. Calling after an interview to reaffirm your interest is another great way to get an employer’s attention. Making sure you remain on the employer’s radar with a series of notes (even if you end up getting the job six months from now) is also a great way to get an employer’s attention. Remember, communication is key.
Communication means letting people know you are there. Let people know you are interested in working for them. Let people know you care. When you communicate with a potential employer, you make yourself stand out. Excellent communication can get you a job when you might not have otherwise succeeded.
What makes you special? What makes you different? Why are you a good employee? Communicate who you are and what you do well. This is what all potential employers want to hear, and it is what you need them to know.
The Best Way to Prepare for a Job Search and Interviews
May 4, 2009
What You Will Learn
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Several years ago when looking for a position in Los Angeles I interviewed with numerous law firms. In virtually every one of these interviews I ran across an attorney who knew not one, not two, not three—but numerous, numerous attorneys in my current firm. If this is the case in a market the size of Los Angeles (and the market in Los Angeles is huge), I cannot even imagine what it must be like in smaller markets. For example, I am from Detroit. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. When it came time for me to decide where to work in law school, when I started interviewing with firms in Detroit I knew many of the attorneys before I even arrived at the interviews–they were the parents of people I grew up with.
The following are my suggestions for the best way to prepare for a job search and interviews:
1. Know you are always being watched, observed and judged
When I was in high school I remember that one of the best looking girls in my school was known to be a prude and someone who would date boys but never let anything all that exciting happen. She was also a star athlete and a student counsel leader and a very respected student. My parents were divorced and lived about an hour apart. I lived with my father. The funny thing is that this same girl also had parents who were divorced and spent a lot of time in one city visiting a parent.
The girl had the exact opposite reputation in the city where she did not live full time. Her strategy it seemed, like the strategy of many, was to have two separate personas. She knew that if she behaved one way in her school and around people there she would experience fall out. She also knew that by keeping her “wild side” in another town this would not affect her directly in her own back yard.
In life we are always being observed. We are being observed in our communities. We are being observed in our jobs. We are being observed by our peers. We are being observed by our superiors. There are a lot of people out there who understand that. The smart woman discussed above certainly understood that (albeit, in a different context).
When I went to look for a job in Detroit, despite the fact that I had not spent time in the city since high school I already knew which firms I would likely get jobs in and which ones I likely would not. This had nothing to do with the prestige of the firm—it had to do with the people inside the firms. I knew that I had been close to certain people growing up and their parents like me. I also knew that I had not been close with others and had made some enemies along the way. Sure enough, when I started applying for jobs in Detroit I was preceded by my past. The Detroit legal community is small enough that most people know one another.
In everything you do in the public arena you are likely being observed, watched and judged. The people you need today will likely have some impact over events that may happen to you tomorrow. It is as simple as that. Like the woman discussed above, you need to do everything you can to maintain a strong public face at all costs.
One thing about interviewing is that there will likely almost always be someone where you are interviewing that knows of you. That person will likely have a say in what is happening to you in your new position. Be aware of this and you will be preparing for interviews every second of every day.
2. Remember that the best employees can spot other good employees and you cannot “fake it”—you are always preparing for interviews just by doing a good job with your current work
There are many people out there who go to work in jobs and for whatever reason are not challenged. Most often the people who claim they are not challenged are the same people who go out of the way to not challenge themselves. We all know the type of person who does not challenge themselves in the job. These are the sorts of people always looking for shortcuts and other methods to do as little work as possible. I have never understood this sort of person—but they are there. This sort of person is also the same one who is likely to be very defensive when asked about something they do not know but think they should know—“oh, I already know that!” they will say.
When you are good at something and really doing your job you have the tendency to get “immersed” in your subject matter. Over time the subject matter and its intricacies and innuendos becomes almost second nature to the good student. You also become more astute and a level or presumed understanding emerges between people who understand the subject matter well. Little tidbits and other bits of understanding emerge. Two people who are very good at something share a similar understanding.
When you are interviewing with a truly excellent person, they will also be able to tell if you share this level of understanding. If you are a slacker and not a hard worker, or someone who does not consistently challenge their mind, they will see right through this. This level of understanding is particularly important at the higher levels. You need to always be working hard and doing good work even when you may not want to make long-term plans to be at your current firm. This is essential.
3. You need to go into your job with a sincere and 100% desire to make it work and switch jobs infrequently—if at all
Until the 1980s, the majority of workers in America changed jobs—if at all. One of the major changes that happened was when the Japanese started importing cheaper and better cars into the United States. American car makers (a major industry at the time) could no longer afford to be as loyal to their employees and mass firings and layoffs became increasingly commonplace. Furthermore, pensions were fairly rapidly phased out at most companies in favor of 401ks—because employees began to be more “portable” in their jobs.
Despite that fact that people can switch jobs at a whim, switch jobs is not always the smartest thing to do. Young people like to feel as if they are in control and more valued by their employers than they value them. In addition, young people are likely to move for a slight bump in salary, an person in the firm they do not like, or some other trivial sort of factor.
These are not good reasons to move. In fact, there are few good reasons to leave most employers. The best reason and the only reason is if there is something inside your firm that is so endemic to the firm and so pervasive that unless you leave your career will never go forward. These factors also should be near 100% beyond your control. When you join an employer it is much like getting married. If you show a lot of commitment to your current employer you will be respected if you have to leave due to factors outside of your control.
The reason all of this is important is because the person interviewing you wants to trust you. If the person or organization interviewing you does not trust you and believes you may leave for a trivial reason then they are will be unlikely to hire you. If your reason for leaving is sound and the next firm who hires you believes you are likely to remain on board in the face of adversity then they are more likely to hire you. People want to have people with staying power in their organizations. No organization is perfect and all organizations go through ups and downs.
Conclusions
In everything you do—both inside and outside of work—you are always preparing for your job search and interviews. You need to remember that the time to prepare for interviews and a job search is before you ever know you will need to prepare. Being a good employee and a job searcher is something that takes the same amount of time and effort to achieve.
The Kick-Ass Marketing Secret of the Most Successful Job Applicants and Employees
March 13, 2009
What You Will Learn
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I have been going to conferences about one thing or another at least a couple times a year for the past several years. I have spent thousands of dollars attending marketing-related conferences. If I go to one more conference where someone talks about USPs (Unique Selling Propositions) I will probably get up and leave. I am going to teach you in the next few minutes what the best marketing minds in the world would charge you thousands of dollars to tell you about how to market yourself.
You are going to know how to position yourself for incredible success—in life and in your job—in the following way:
First, I am going to tell you how to get jobs that more highly qualified competitors do not get.
Second, how to get jobs you are not even qualified for.
Third, how to appear to be the most logical choice to be interviewed when you apply for a job.
Fourth, how to make every interviewer talk about you enthusiastically after interviewing.
What You Will Learn
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Sound impossible? It’s not. However, it requires that you know something about marketing and that you really understand one marketing concept: the USP, or whatever you want to call it. It is not hard to understand, but you do need to think through the idea a bit to really grasp it.
I have been getting up and leaving lots of conferences lately. I left one last weekend, and I left one a couple of months before that.
The reason I am leaving these conferences is because very few of the people at conferences have any idea what they are talking about. What these people typically do at the conferences is learn some marketing ideas about this or that, create a horrible course, and then try and get people to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for them. In addition, most of these people are not just clueless; they’re completely clueless. I usually end up leaving when I hear them pronounce some famous marketing person’s name incorrectly or call some marketing concept by a name it should not be called.
The reason people keep showing up to these marketing conferences and paying all these gurus money to listen to them bastardize marketing concepts they do not even understand is this: When a marketing concept really works it can be incredibly effective.
- I know one guy in his twenties who came out with a brand of liquor and created some buzz around it and a couple of years later sold it to some giant liquor company for hundreds of millions of dollars.
- I know of another guy who did the same thing with a stuffed animal. I represented him when I practiced law. He made several hundred million dollars.
How effective is this marketing stuff? People who really understand it at a deep level can make hundreds of millions of dollars. If people can make hundreds of millions of dollars with a simple marketing concept pitching a bottle of booze or a stuffed animal, imagine what you can do with this stuff in your career.
The most effective of all marketing weapons out there is the USP. The term USP has been around a long, long time. I would define USP in the following way:
Your USP is that unique aspect of yourself that sets you apart from every other “me too” employee and job seeker in the market.
Your entire career can be built almost exclusively around your USP. The key word for your USP, however, is “unique.” Your USP is what differentiates you from your competition and makes you a must-have hire and employee in the job market.
You should be able to explain, in a single phrase, why someone should hire you and want to work with you and not someone else, or why they need to hire you at all.
For job seekers, the USP is among the most important things you need to have, even before having a resume, in my opinion. Your USP is what you are offering, and it is what you want to stick out and be memorable about your candidacy. Your USP is that important. The possibilities for creating your USP are unlimited; however, it is best to adopt a USP that dynamically addresses something that a potential employer is probably not getting that you can give them. (Be careful, though, because you need to be able to fulfill whatever it is you are promising in your USP.)
Before telling you how to go about creating your USP, let me first describe something that characterizes most job seekers. First, when I ask people I am interviewing why I should hire them and not someone else, most of them have no decent response. Why? Because most people have never thought through their own USP. Most people have no USP and instead, have only a rudderless, nondescript candidacy that depends only upon the momentum of the market. For example, if the market is doing well and there are lots of jobs available, they may get hired. If the market slows down and these people need another job, then they will wait for the market to pick up again. Most people offer no real benefit to employers and nothing distinct or unique. No great service or value is promised either implicitly or explicitly—just “hire me,” for no explicit reason.
It’s no surprise, then, that most careers are merely average and not exceptional. People accomplish only a small share of what they could accomplish in their job searches and careers due to not fully developing their USP. Why would you want to hire someone who is just average with no unique benefit? Or would you prefer someone who is the absolute best at what they do?
Let me tell you two quick stories.
Some time ago I hired an assistant whose former job had been to be an assistant to uneducated, has-been movie and rock stars and others who were on tight budgets and needed to keep their secrets out of the limelight. I reviewed her resume and saw all of the famous people she had worked for over her career and felt very privileged to have this person working for me as well. However, she had never actually been hired by these people. She had been hired by their business managers. The job of business managers of stars and others when their clients get late into their careers is to make sure they (1) do not run out of money and (2) are not featured in the press in unflattering ways. This is what they looked for in her when they hired her.
Her job had been to be an assistant; however, more than this, her job had been to babysit these people and make sure they did not spend too much money or get into trouble in various ways. In addition to this she was an assistant; however, her real skill was running peoples’ lives and keeping costs down.
Her USP on her resume when I interviewed was something along the lines of “effective in controlling confidential clients’ spending and keeping them out of media in a variety of challenging circumstances.” I found this bizzare at the time, but she was extremely personable and interviewed exceptionally well. In fact, I hired her during the interview.
Once she started work she started shaping up everyone around her. She demanded that they not gossip and recommended in the harshest possible manner that I fire certain employees who were gossiping. She looked around the office and determined everyone from the person who came in to water the plants to the cleaning woman should be fired and replaced with cheaper alternatives. When I travelled she rented me ridiculous little Asian cars I could scarcely fit into and put me into the cheapest hotels she could find, that were miles from where I needed to be, just to save money. I did not like this.
When I protested she would talk to me like a child.
“It only costs an additional $3.00 a day for a regular size car,” I might protest.
“Now, what did I tell you about behaving?” she might respond.
She was incredible at what she did, but it was not for me. Had I been a spendthrift, out-of-work actor on a fixed income, this would have been exactly what I needed. The people around me would not have gossiped about me to the press, and I would not have run out of money
This woman had a USP and she stood for two things (1) saving money and (2) keeping the person she worked for out of the press. She did this instinctively, and this is why she is someone who was probably never unemployed in Los Angeles for more than a few days. Ever.
The reason for this is due to the fact that she had an incredible USP and it was exactly what business manager and others wanted in someone doing a job like she did. She was absolutely perfect in every way for the particular job that business managers needed for older, non-working entertainment clients.
This is the example of a USP in action. Imagine if you were managing a former movie star and had the two goals of keeping the person’s dirty laundry out of the limelight and also making sure that the person did not spend money. The person I hired would be the absolute first person you would hire. This person stood for something and followed through on what they stood for. I am sure she will never have a difficult time finding a job in Los Angeles, no matter what the economy is like, as long as she has this particular USP.
Can you see what an appealing difference a USP can make in establishing someone’s image to a potential employer? It is ludicrous not to have a clear, carefully crafted USP that is in the very fabric of your candidacy with any firm.
The next story I am going to tell you about USPs is so ludicrous it is hard to believe. But it’s true.
When I was growing up there was a guy down the street from me who was incredibly wild. He once got suspended from elementary school for throwing a desk at a teacher. As he progressed through high school and then college he continued to get more and more wild. One time he was over at a friend of mine’s house, and he had used so many drugs that he sat on a chair for what I understand was something like 36 hours staring at a wall. He was a wild guy, and he still is pretty wild.
However, despite all this wildness he is actually extremely uptight. His mind works like a vice grip, and he is so detail oriented it is hard to believe. When you are around this guy when he is not spaced out on drugs it makes you uncomfortable. He perceives every little detail about everything, and these details make him visibly agitated if anything is ever out of place. He starts sweating sometimes if anything seems off too much. His face turns red. This guy is way, way too wound up and always has been. He almost flunked out of college because he was using drugs and partying all the time. However, he still ended up getting tons of jobs.
Employers meet this guy and they know that absolutely nothing whatsoever will ever slip by him. It is difficult for me to even describe how uptight this guy is in words. His mind is like a trap. This guy has never been unemployed. His resume says something like “unbelievably detail oriented” and it is absolutely true. The guy is considered one of the top quality-related guys in the United States. He works for a big company and makes a hell of a lot of money studying something like quality control. He gets calls from recruiters all the time. He was rich by the time he was 30. He works in a labcoat in ridiculously expensive production lines that make things like computer chips. He is an absolute star at what he does.
This guy’s entire identity is based around being incredibly detail oriented on the job. He is incredibly detail oriented, and people truly understand this around him. This is what this guy does. He does this well, and everyone who comes into contact with him knows this.
The point is that you need to focus your USP on one gap, niche, need, or segment of the market that the market needs. The market needs guys who are detail oriented and assistants who control the spending and public perception of people in the entertainment industry.
You need to come up with a USP and have something that sets you apart in the market. Before you can incorporate your USP into your resume and interviews and work style, however, you need to figure out what it is (or what you want it to be) and then refine it and make sure you focus it as cleanly and directly as you possibly can. You should be able to articulate a crystal-clear USP in less than a paragraph.
Your USP is the nucleas around which you will get a job and define your career, so you better have one and you better be able to state one. If you cannot state a USP, the people you work with and/or whom are interviewing you will not be able to define it either. Clearly conveying and marketing your USP will make your success in the job market close to inevitable if it is a strong enough USP. But you need a USP before you do anything.
When you create a meaningful USP you are taking the vast details of all of your experience, education, and character and putting in one or a few sentences. More importantly, these sentences typically have the force of salesmenship in practically every single word. You do not need to care how this USP reads, either. It does not have to sound good. What it needs to do is stand out and create positive tension in the employer’s mind.
The biggest test if you have adopted a really good USP or not is if it could be adopted by another job seeker without being modified. Here are some examples of meaningless USPs:
- Well-educated educated teacher.
- Hard-working employee.
- Team player.
These USPs do nothing to separate one person from another in the job market. Lots of people are well educated and professional. Lots of people are also hard working. Lots of people are also team players. None of these things are really that unusual. If an employer puts and advertisement out for virtually any job they will receive applications from people claiming to have these various “unique” qualifications. The truth is, however, none of these qualifications is unique at all. None of these things is really going to make you stick out in the employers’ minds when they are reviewing your resume, interviewing you, and considering hiring you.
You are well educated? What does this mean? You are hard working? What does this mean? You are a team player? What does this mean? You need to go deeper and deeper. You need to push harder and find something that make you stand out. How about:
- “Students in my classes get so enthusiastic about learning they often come to me for extra reading assignments to learn more,” “Oxford educated teacher,” “Former high school valedvictorian teacher who speaks Latin and four other languages and makes students incredibly enthusiastic about learning” (for well educated teacher).
- “My supervisors always tell me not to work so hard,” “Known at every employer I have ever worked at as the last one out at the end of the day,” “I am the guy supervisors tell to take a vacation” (for hard working).
- “Am I too friendly and well liked by other people at work?” “When employer’s hire me morale rises because I am always the guy who organizes softball leagues, basketball teams, and so forth for the employees,” ”Pizza parties at my house are a regular occurrence” (for team player).
I am showing you these examples and want you to think about them. Each of them is memorable because each of them makes the person stand out. The imagery is vivid, and we can sense and understand what is being talked about and referred to in the statements.
My greatest and most favorite skill is being a legal recruiter. As a legal recruiter I have written hundreds of profiles for various attorneys out there that I use to help them get in the door at various law firms. At first glance, every attorney is pretty much identical to the others out there in the market. For example, they all go to good law schools, they all work hard, and they are ball very ambitious. I have to work pretty hard to differentiate each attorney I work with out there from the rest.
I am not going to tell you I am the best legal recruiter in the United States; however, I may well be. I’ve made more than $1,000,000 in fees personally from doing this sort of work virtually every single year I’ve done it. I can honestly say that nothing I do to help my candidates get jobs is more important than helping them have a strong and incredibly persuasive USP. That is why I sit on my ass at all those shitty marketing conferences: I know that the more I learn and understand this sort of stuff, the more I can help various people get jobs. I have been able to change people’s lives by crafting powerful USPs for them and sending them into interviews. One year I actually placed every single candidate I worked with and I can say it is almost entirely due to having a good USP for them.
Every attorney and every person has a USP that can be used with employers.
Sometimes it is the obstacles the person has overcome.
Sometimes it is their unique writing ability.
Sometimes it is their passion.
Sometimes it is their character.
The point is that everyone out there has a particular USP. You are different from other people and there is something different about your candidacy and experience than everyone else’s out there. You need to say so, and you need to be as upfront as possible about this. Have something in your USP that no one else out there offers.
And tell your story. ”I learned the importance of hard work because I grew up on a farm and got up at 4:30 am to milk the cows from the time I was 7 years old until I went off to college at the age of 18 and never missed a single day. If you are looking for an attorney who works hard ,you are never going to find someone more dedicated, hardworking, and consistent than me.”
Persuasive, right? Who would you hire to be an attorney? Some four-eyed, upper middle-class arrogant law school graduate, or a guy who came in with a story like that? I think you would interview the kid of a farmer just for the novelty, and hire him as well.
This is the power of an awesome USP.
Why are you the right choice among all the other choices employers have out there? If you truly want to get a job, you will get in touch with your USP and start standing out to employers. You will be a standout person whose resume and so forth sticks out to the employer and who is memorable. People will be buying you as a concept and not just hiring an employer.
When you interview with employers, everything you say should clearly reinforce your USP. Think about your own past buying examples. When you are in the market for a product or service don’t you tend to favor the businesses that strongly presents a USP? Of course you do!
You need to understand one thing, though: You are not going to be able to appeal to everyone out there. In fact, certain USPs are only going to appeal to certain employers and not others. However, this is part of what a USP is: It is a market differentiator. Differentiate yourself in the market, create a USP, and you will never have a difficult time finding a job.
The Dangers of Getting Jobs Through Friends
March 6, 2009
Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.
“Oh, I already have a friend there. I’ll just contact him.” In the job market, it’s one of the more common things we hear after informing a job seeker that a certain employer has a job opening. There is a lot you need to consider before you decide to apply to a job through a friend or relative, or take a job working for a friend or relative. First, it is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. The reason for this is simple: Despite what you think, the involvement of friends or family members in your job search may actually hurt you. Moreover, all employers know the severe problems that can arise when friends or relatives work together. Due to this, simply going through a close contact is often something that is actually counterproductive for your job search. Second, even if you are one of the few people who are able to get positions through a friend or family member, you could run into a great deal of trouble and harm your relationship with that person in the process. First, this article examines the risks associated with attempting to get a job through a friend or family member. Second, the article will then examine potential problems you could face if you ultimately get a position through these means. Third, this article describes some of the reasons for not working for a friend or relative. Finally, because it is so common to get jobs through acquaintances, this article examines the conditions where it is acceptable and likely to not be a problem.
What You Will Learn
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A. The Risks of Trying to Get a Position Through a Friend or Family Member
When you are seeking a job through a friend, you will often be surprised to find that he/she will not help you get a job with his/her organization. Moreover, the organization may actually look upon you negatively and not hire you if you try to use a friend or family member to get a job.
1. Friends and Family Members, More Often Than Not, Do Not Help You When You Are Seeking a Job with Them
One of the most common things that job seekers do is think that friends are their best allies in job searches. After all, the employment market is a harsh place. Who better to help you with your job search than a friend employed by an employer you would like to work for? A friend certainly recognizes all of your strengths and appreciates you for the person you are. In addition, the thought of depending upon a stranger when you have a friend or family member close by does not make a lot of sense. Certainly you can always trust a friend over a stranger.
I have been a legal recruiter for several years. I have represented more candidates than I can count. In all of my time as a legal recruiter, I have never once had a candidate get a job through a friend. Incredibly, I have actually gotten several candidates jobs with firms where they thought that they had friends inside who were helping them with their job searches-”insiders” who never managed to get their friends interviews. Moreover, when I think back on my own life, I do not think that I have ever gotten any job where I had a friend or relative helping me.
The issue with using friends to try to help you with your job search is that you never know your friends as well as you think. Almost instinctively, most people are competitive with one another. When you are dealing with people close to you, you will often agree with them just to avoid argument. In fact, if you spend more than a couple of hours with your family or a group of your friends, you will find this sort of thing occurring probably every few minutes throughout each conversation. Friends and family also often do their best to laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes and cover up their unpleasant qualities. Your friends and family will most often say they love your taste in music, your choice of clothing, your house or apartment, your writing, and most everything you take seriously. It is possible your friends and family mean this. It is also possible they do not.
The thought of asking a friend to help you with a job search with his employer is, in effect, an attempt to shield yourself from the harshness of the world. The same enthusiasm your friends and family have for you in the personal realm, you may imagine, will directly translate to an eagerness to help you find work with their organizations. I would offer at the outset that this is a possibility, and you may not be wrong in thinking this. Notwithstanding, this is often not the case.
One of the more common things that occur when job seekers ask a friend or family member for help is, nothing. The friend or family member gets your resume, thinks about it, and then (for whatever reason) decides he/she does not want to forward it to the powers that be. You cannot imagine how common this is. If you have forwarded a resume to a friend recently, call the hiring partner or recruiting coordinator about it. In more than 50% of the cases, your “friend” will not have even forwarded the information. He/She will pleasantly tell you that he/she will, but he/she didn’t. Your friend will often lie and tell you he/she forwarded the information when he/she did not. Again, I have seen this more times than I can count. The number is more than 50% (with the possible exception of employers that pay “bounties” to employees who find other employees).
Your guess as to why this occurs is as good as mine. Perhaps your friend or family member simply does not want the two of you working in the same office. Perhaps your friend does not want responsibility for what you might do if you were hired. Perhaps (just perhaps) your friend honestly does not think as highly of your capabilities as you do. While your friend might not tell you that he/she resents you because you have so and so, did so and so, or said such and such once, you can believe this can come out if you come to him/her seeking assistance with getting a job. Again, you will not even know this has come out. It just will-the employer may never see your resume.
Assuming your friend or family member does forward your resume, be prepared for all sorts of brutally honest assessments of your character and talents that you personally may never have been aware of. Most friends speak about one another with other groups of friends when the other is not around. Not all of this conversation is pleasant. Do you have any idea what your friends are saying about you? I can almost guarantee you that some of it is negative. You probably do not even know 10% of the negative things your friends and family say about you when you are not around. I have a question for you: Do you want any of this 90% of invisible negative information you are not aware of to be communicated to your potential employer?
2. The Reasons Organizations Often Do Not Like to Hire Friends or Family Members of Their Employees
Nepotism has traditionally been considered a negative term. The word originates from the Latin word nephos, which means nephew and was created to describe Pope Calixtus III’s hiring of nephews as cardinals. The first anti-nepotism policies probably originated in the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, when resentment began to build against incompetents appointed to high clerical offices. To this day, nepotism is something that can create resentment in all employment environments. In this article, I define nepotism as the hiring of relatives as well as friends.
Reducing corruption and increasing efficiency are the primary reasons many organizations have anti-nepotism policies. Corruption has always been a concern in this realm. If individuals who are friends or relatives work together, organizations fear that these individuals may collaborate to advance their own interests rather than the interests of the organization. Nepotism can also lower morale of those who supervise relatives of friends of high-level members of the organization, those who work with them, and those who feel that rewards or promotions have been bestowed in an unfair manner. One or two friends or relatives may react negatively (and contrary to the interests of the organization) when another is criticized or disciplined by the organization. Finally, perception is a serious problem. Other employees will also perceive unequal treatment of one friend or relative regardless of whether or not this is the case.
While a great deal could be written about nepotism, suffice it to say that is something many employers are concerned about. Using a perceived in with an employer to try to get a job may actually hurt you because of the employer’s own feelings about nepotism.
It is important to note that not all employers will be against nepotism. For example, in smaller, family-owned law businesses, it is often common because it provides an efficient way to identify dedicated employees. Nepotism may also foster a dedicated, family-like environment that boosts the morale of everyone-relatives and friends alike. A good example is the Central Intelligence Agency, which actually encourages the hiring of married couples. Having both spouses free to discuss classified information can actually reduce the strain of a high-stress career.
While nepotism may have its place, it is important to note that more often than not it is something that can scare away employers. It should therefore be avoided in the job search.
B. The Problems You Will Likely Cause Yourself if You Get a Position Through a Friend or Family Member
I review a lot of the resumes that we receive throughout the United States each day at BCG Attorney Search. There are two things that I see a lot of: (1) associates who obviously do not have the qualifications to work inside certain law firms and (2) associates working for small law firms (with their own last names in the mastheads) who are secretly looking for jobs.
Each and every time I speak with these associates, I find that they are in positions because of family members and are extremely resentful of the family members for whatever reason. They have lots of negative things to say about them and desperately want new jobs with the same salaries and levels of responsibility. Not once in my career do I think I have seen one of this class of associates who was qualified for a job even remotely as good as the one he/she was in at the time. Nevertheless, these associates always resent and, in most instances, hate the family member who got them the jobs they were unqualified for to begin with. Moreover, these associates refuse to go a less-prestigious firm or job. Most often, in fact, they believe they should be working for even better organizations.
If you accept a job through a friend or family member, watch out. More important, watch yourself. In the end, you will likely be your own downfall. It is your friend or family member’s act of kindness that will ultimately unbalance your friendship.
The typical pattern that happens when someone is hired by a friend or family member is as follows. First, the people hired are grateful for being hired, but generally want to feel as if they deserve their good fortunes. Accordingly, the friends or family members hired will look for all sorts of justifications to show the world and demonstrate to themselves that they deserve their good fortunes.
One response of the people hired may be to believe that being hired is a payback of sorts for everything that they have ever done to be kind to their friends or family members. They begin a process of justifying their hiring by everything they have ever said or done for the friend or family member.
Another response may be for the hired person to begin comparing themselves to others inside the same organization and believe they are more intelligent than all of these other people. Therefore, the hired friends or family members justify their positions by often unjustly attacking their fellow employees.
The most common reaction, though, is that the hired friend or family member will become resentful of the person who helped him/her get the job to begin with. The receipt of a favor can come to mean, in the hired friend’s or family member’s eyes, that he/she was hired due to this and not based on merit. There is what I would term “hidden condescension” in the act of hiring a friend or family member that grinds at him/her all the time.
Whoever you are working for likely cares more about (1) getting the job done and (2) doing the job as well as it can be done than having friendly feelings flowing between the two of you. Your status as a friend or relative of someone does not mean that you are automatically the one who can best do the job. If you cannot do the job in the best manner, more resentment is going to arise when your friend or family member asks another person to help with a given task.
One of the more brilliant statesmen of the 19th century, Napoleon’s Foreign Minister Talleyrand, decided that his boss was leading France to ruin. Talleyrand therefore decided that he needed to take down Napoleon. Obviously, the task of overthrowing Napoleon would not be a small one. In order to carry it out, Talleyrand desperately needed to enlist the assistance of someone he could trust. Instead of turning to a friend for help, Talleyrand turned to his worst enemy, Fouche’, the head of the Secret Police.
Fouche’ had even tried to have Talleyrand assassinated. The brilliance of Talleyrand’s choice was that it provided Fouche’ with the opportunity to reconcile with Talleyrand on an emotional level. In addition, there was nothing Fouche’ would expect from Talleyrand, and quite the contrary, Fouche’ would work hard to prove that he was worthy of Talleyrand’s picking him for the task. When people have something to prove, they will work harder than those who do not. Compare this to what could have occurred if Talleyrand simply went to a friend for help.
Talleyrand chose Fouche’ because he knew that their relationship would be based entirely on their mutual self-interest in removing Napoleon and not poisoned by personal feelings. While their effort to topple Napoleon ultimately failed, they were able to generate much interest in the cause and had a good relationship going forward.
Similarly, it is important to realize that getting a job and working in a job on equal ground and in an atmosphere of mutual self-interest is crucial. Personal feelings obscure the fact that there is work that needs to be done in an efficient manner. In a work environment where everyone is evaluated and judged on merit, more productivity and honesty on all sides can only ensure good business.
C. Conclusions
One of the more disturbing phone calls I have received was from the Dean of Career Services at a second-tier law school. The Dean had read an article I wrote that advised attorneys on how to get a job in a tough legal market. The Dean told me that the first place everyone should always look to get a job was with their family. The Dean then told me that people should go to events and “make friends” with other attorneys and then ask them for jobs (a.k.a. “networking”). As I listened to the Dean speak, it became abundantly clear to me that she did not like any manner of getting an attorney job that did not come through friends or family. In her view, if a job came through a friend or family member, it was far better than getting a job through a “stranger.”
It is natural when looking for a job to contact the people you know to see if they can help you with your job search. In fact, I would guess that most job seekers early in their careers contact a family member, a personal friend, or an acquaintance when seeking a new job. Most associates and partners I have worked with as a recruiter (who have contacted me for assistance) have been clear with me that before contacting a recruiter, they contacted a friend, an acquaintance, or another person they were connected with in some social manner to see if he/she could help with a job search. Moreover, most employees have, at some point in time, told a friend that they would try to assist them with getting a job at their place of work.
While it may be difficult to believe-and contrary to the advice of the Dean, you actually may be safer (1) getting a job without the help of family or friends and (2) working in an environment without family or friends. You do both at your own risk. Most of the time, I believe the risks far outweigh the potential long-term and short-term rewards.
Robin Hood and Appealing to an Employer’s Noble Motives
March 3, 2009
What You Will Learn
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I grew up in a suburb of Detroit and went to school with several Italian kids whose parents were in the Detroit Mafia. I would name them but to be completely honest I am afraid that if I did I might turn up dead. I do not want to upset these people with any slight–no matter how insignificant. I know they were legitimate members of a mafia family not just because when I was growing up everyone talked about it, but because years later when I started working for the Federal Government I met a US Marshal who told me all sorts of stories about the parents of the kids I grew up with. He had done stakeouts in front of houses in my own neighborhood when he was working for the Detroit Police in a previous job and had shocking stories about the stuff the parents were involved in.
One of the funniest things about the parents of these kids was that they were always quite generous. They would give money to the schools their kids attended. They would have birthday parties and invite people from their Church. The fathers who were running ruthless criminal enterprises would jump around like rabbits and play with the children at birthday parties. They would go to church on Sundays. When I would go to the Symphony with my parents I would see the names of some of the families listed as benefactors in the guides.
Until it went off the air, one of my favorite television shows was The Sopranos. In many of these episodes the family would be seen in a Catholic church attending mass for a funeral. One of my favorite episodes of the Sopranos was when Carmella Soprano received a telephone call from Columbia University where her daughter was attending and went to meet a man from the school. The man asked her to donate $50,000 to the school and she went to her husband and he gave her $50,000 for the school. I loved this episode because it was such a perfect contract between good and evil. To me it seems incredible that on the one hand someone would steal and murder and on the other hand would hand over money to school like this.
Watching the mafia families around me when I was growing up I can also see that they too wanted to be seen as nice people. They wanted to be seen as good church going people. They wanted to be seen as supporters of the schools and the arts. However, in the community itself they were likely involved in things like selling drugs and prostitution and extortion.
The idea that the most evil people in the world also want to see themselves as good was an idea that really stuck out with me. The longer I have been in business and the world the more I have seen that everyone wants to believe that they are good.
One of the biggest insults for me when I meet people in business or people that I am interested in hiring is when they tell me how much money I will make if I do things a certain way. I have interviewed multiple people who sit in on interviews and tell me how much money they are going to make me if I hire them.
I remember several years ago I was interviewing someone for a Human Resources Director’s job. At the time, in Los Angeles, for a company our size a position like this paid around $80,000 a year. I was interviewing a guy and I liked him a great deal and thought he would do pretty well. He was currently making $50,000 as an HR Director of another company.
“What sort of salary are you looking for?” I asked him.
“I will not accept a job for less than $120,000″, he said.
“I do not understand. You’re currently making less than half of that,” I told him.
“Yes, but I will be getting a job making $120,000 a year. I am different than other HR Directors you could interview because all I care about is making you money. I have a great personality and am going to make you a lot of money. I will hire and fire people based on their ability to make you money. ”
There was a lot wrong with what this guy said and did to me on multiple levels; however, the worst thing he did was ascribe to me the idea that all I cared about was making a lot of money. At the time what I cared about most was creating a good work environment for the employees and that was why I was looking for an HR Director. More importantly, my life’s mission has involved finding ways for people to get jobs because I believe this is a higher motive. I am interested in doing something that is good and meaningful for the world and this is what makes me tick. I am, of course, not averse to making a living but my primary motivation does not involve trying to make money at all costs.
Most people are like I am, like the Sopranos were and like the Mafioso I grew up with are: People want to believe that they are doing something positive and good for the world. In fact, just about everyone I have ever met wants to believe on one level or another that there is something “noble” to what they are doing and that their work “serves a higher purpose.” People want to believe in the significance of what they are doing and their place and meaning in the world. Deep down we all want to believe that we are good people and not bad people. The evil will usually justify their actions in one way or another as something that is related to doing well.
One of the greatest legends in history is of Robin Hood. There are writings dating back as far as 1283 that talk about Robin Hood. There are numerous different variations of the legend of Robin Hood and the story has been handed down for centuries. During the time of Robin Hood, King Richard was on a crusade in Jerusalem and left his brother, Prince John, in control during his absence. Prince John was known for his greed for money and considered evil. He taxed the people so much that they even had to use the little money they had for bread to pay him taxes. One day after Robin was returning from a crusade he came across a poor peasant in Sherwood Forest who had just killed a deer. The deer of Sherwood Forest were meant only for the King to hunt. The peasant was being pursued by the King’s guards for having killed the deer and taking pity on the peasant Robin Hood killed the king’s guards and became an outlaw. Robin Hood ended up losing his wealth, land and everything he had in the whole world. Robin Hood ended up living in the forest and stealing from the rich and giving to the peasants.
This story has been handed down for over 800 years in Western culture and as myth likely carries the power it does for so many people due in some part to the fact that it shows that people who are off in the world doing things that may appear evil actually have a high regard for themselves. Robin Hood is celebrated due to the fact that his stealing and murder actually became something that looked like a good thing in his and the world’s estimation.
Your employer too wants to believe they are a good person. Your potential employer wants to believe they are a good person. Everyone wants to believe that deep down they are a good person and that they stand for something positive in the world. This is the nature of the world. The greatest politicians appeal to people’s higher motives and the greatest public speakers, motivational coaches and others also appeal to these motives as well. In 1896, George Pierce Baker wrote in Principles of Argumentation:
“Choose the highest motive to which you think your audience will respond. If the speaker feels it necessary to appeal to motives not of the highest grades he should see to it that before he closes he makes them lead into higher motives.” Professor Barker illustrates with Beecher’s Speech at Liverpool, in which the orator during our Civil War was struggling with a very hostile audience of Englishmen. He argued that if slavery were abolished in the South, England would find a better market there for her goods, but “he connected this appear with the far higher motives of mere justice and the good of humanity … What gives its significant to [this] suggestion … is that few men are willing to admit that they have acted from motives considered low or mean. Even if they suspect this to be the case, they endeavor to convince themselves that it is not true. In an audience each man knows those about him see what moves him in a speaker’s words and therefore he yields most readily to a motive which he knows is generally commended–religious feelings, charity, devotion to one’s country, etc. . . . Since, then, men yield more willingly to motives generally commended, and since unanimity of action is more easily gained when the highest motives are addressed, this corollary to the suggestion last made may be formulated: The larger the audience, the higher the motives to which an appeal may be made.”
Similarly, in James Winans’ 1911 book Public Speaking, Principles and Practice, he writes:
While motives are frequently mixed, we need not cynically attribute right actions to selfishness, ambition or fear of public opinion. The average man really intends to do the right thing once his sense of responsibility is aroused. While most of us let down a bit when not under observation, we have certain principles of conduct, duty, honesty, honor, courage and generosity, in accordance with which we must live if we are to retain our self-respect.
… The moral is: Do not fear to appeal to the best sentiments in your hearers. Assume they are better rather than worse than they are. They may respond to lower motives, but may also rise gladly to a higher plane.
When you are interviewing with companies it is always important that you ascribe good motives to the hiring of you. One of the most common hires that I make is in the legal recruiting industry. The legal recruiting industry, like all industries, is an industry where people can either make a lot of money or not much money. Since recruiting is somewhat of a sales-type position, many people applying to the work believe that what they are doing is all about sales, “closing” and making money. In terms of the way that I think about legal recruiting this could not be further from the truth. When I was younger I remember running an asphalt business and hiring people in drug rehabilitation centers in Detroit and teaching them about work and how to work for a company. Many of these people had grown up on the streets and had never worked in their lives. It is a real source of pride that I was able to make an impact, no matter how small, in the lives of these people. This is something I feel good about to this day because using my spirit and the energy inside me I felt like I was able to bring light into the lives of many of these people. When I became a legal recruiter I believed that I was also helping people. I felt that I was helping the people who had played by society’s rules make the most of themselves and that they deserved to have the best possible recruiter working for them. I felt that the work I was doing held a higher purpose and that I could positively impact the world by insuring that the attorneys with the most talent and soul ended up getting the best jobs. This is how I thought about my job and it is still how I think about my job today. Now that I run job boards and other career services I believe that I am creating opportunity and work for millions of people. I feel very good about what I am doing. I justify my actions and my life in terms of what I consider a higher purpose.
This is why when people come in to speak with me for recruiting positions, for example, they demean me when they ascribe to me ideas such as they will make a lot of money in recruiting. When people cut corners in recruiting I feel the same way about their actions. If people are just focused on making money and so forth they typically do not do well in our organization. I believe people need to be working for higher motives.
I do not consider myself special or all that unusual. When it comes right down to it, most employers will tell you that whatever they are doing there is some sort of noble purpose in what they are doing. A corporate attorney may tell you he prevents companies from being taken advantage of. A gas station mechanic will tell you he fixes cars so people can spend time traveling with their families. A stock broker will tell you he helps people invest money so they can retire. There is likely some noble and higher purpose to whatever any company or organization is doing.
My challenge to you is to always think in terms of what the employer you are interviewing with or working for is doing that serves a higher purpose. When you understand this higher purpose, speak in terms of these in interviews and in your daily work. This will set you apart from most people and will put you on a
higher and different plane than others. It will also make you appear to be a better choice in most instances for hiring and promotion. Everyone wants to be associated with what is good and noble. Being this person will have tremendous rewards for you in your career.
You Will Succeed in Your Job and Job Search When You Are Concerned With Giving and Not Taking
February 23, 2009
What You Will Learn
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The quality of our lives, in many respects, is determined by our working lives. Being able to enjoy our jobs and being able to get jobs is something that is incredibly important. A job is not just about earning a living; it is about forming a relationship with an institution, or group of people, and being supported by that organization. For example, the organization may provide you with a good outlet for your skills and give you work you enjoy. In your work environment you will also have the opportunity to come into contact with, and interact with, the public. In most respects, if we do not enjoy our jobs, we do not enjoy life. Therefore, we must ensure that we have great skills to both get and keep jobs.
Getting a job and working for an employer is, in many respects, no different than being in a relationship with another human being. There are people who go into relationships with other people from a perspective of wanting to take from others rather than give. I use this example because I am sure you have met people (we all have) that have been more interested in what they could take from you in a relationship rather than what they could give. Perhaps they wanted a place to stay indefinitely, and you did not even know them very well. Perhaps they wanted you to listen to them talk incessantly and never listened to you. Everyone has known people like this who, for one reason or another, seem more interested in what they can take from us, rather than what they can give.
In our personal relationships we have a very simple solution to this: We avoid these people for the most part and do not want anything to do with them. We do not like people who are focused only on taking from us. We learn this from a very young age and by the time we are even six or seven; we are avoiding people whose objective seems more to take from us than to give. This is just how things work. There are people out there who want relationships with us that are one-way streets, where they perceive us as a solution to their problems. Most of us to do not want to be the solutions to other peoples’ problems or to be in a relationship that is a one-way street like this. We want our needs taken care of as well.
One of the most important components of relationships, and one of the most important things with relationships, is that we need to go into them with the intent of giving something–not necessarily taking something out. What you put out does tend to come back to you. In a relationship where two people are going into the relationship to give, both parties are likely to be benefited. One of the most important components in any relationship is understanding what the other person needs. If both parties understand what the other needs, then both are likely to be very happy in the relationship.
Several years ago, I was staying with a young couple who were in their early 30s. Every morning, she would get up early and make her husband a large breakfast and then wait on him while he ate. She would refill his juice, ask him if there was enough salt on his eggs, tell him she could make some more sausage if he needed it. She would not even eat herself until he was long gone to work. He liked being taken care of like this and she would also make him his lunch to take to work. I spoke to him about this and he told me that this is what his mother used to do for him and it made him feel very loved.
Throughout the day he would pick up the phone, what seemed like almost every hour, and ask her what she was doing and how her day was going. She would relate what had happened over the past hour and seek his input on various decisions she wanted to make about one thing or another. She loved having a sounding board for various things she was doing. If she spoke to a friend on the phone she would ask him what he thought about the conversation. If she was deciding between two different priced goods at the grocery store, she might call him and seek his input. She loved getting the input and not having to make certain decisions, and this made him feel important. While I thought all of this was very unusual, the point is that it worked. Both of these individuals had certain emotional needs that were being taken care of extremely well in the relationship. More importantly, it seemed to me that both of them were really in the relationship to give and this made everything work extremely well.
Some people just need certain things. This guy needed a wife that would wait on him and cook for him. She needed a husband who would speak to her every hour. That was just how it was. Everyone has certain buttons that when pushed, fulfill their needs and things that they need out of relationships. Finding these buttons can be difficult but when they are found everything generally falls into place. For many relationships, these buttons are never found. When these buttons are found, however, an incredible amount of trust, happiness and respect can be established between both parties. The buttons are needs that two people have in a relationship.
A relationship with an employer has a lot of similarities to a relationship with another human being. Just as people have certain needs that need to be taken care of, so do employers. Moreover, just as it is advisable to go into a relationship with another human being as something where you are trying to give, you should also go into work relationships with the idea of giving. You need to be more focused on the other person’s interest than your own in order to really experience the level of satisfaction you want out of a work relationship. What you put out comes back to you.
One of the most interesting questions I have when I am asking someone who is unemployed when they can start work is, “We really need someone to start right away. When can you start?”
I have seen that this is a very powerful question over the years, because it tends to really flush out people who are really interested in working from those who are not interested in working. It also immediately shows how important it is for various people to contribute versus those who are seeking a one-sided relationship. There are probably other ways of figuring this out but I believe this is a pretty good one. The answer to this question really shows a lot about how someone is going to be like once they are hired.
Here are some possible responses to this questions:
- “Would it be okay if I checked back with you on that?”
- “I have a trip planned and I would like to take the trip, and then after that I have been hoping to organize some things around the house. I can definitely start within four to five weeks.”
- “I am in the middle of restoring an old car but I can put a lot of the parts away and start by the middle of next week.”
- “I can start on Monday.”
- “I can start tomorrow.”
- “I can start today.”
- “I can start right now.”
- “I can start right now and if you need me to I will work all night. It looks like you have a lot to do.”
The more someone seems eager to start now and begin work immediately, the more likely I am to want to hire this person. This is not some rule I have simply pulled out of thin air or read in a management book. Instead, I have learned that the answer someone gives to this question is likely to really determine their commitment to their job and work going forward. It is a pattern I have seen over and over again , and in the course of having hired hundreds of people and placed hundreds of people in jobs—I know the more eager someone is to do something and start work, the more committed they are likely to be to the job once they start. Hearing that an employer needs help immediately and wanting to help and contribute now is an important characteristic.
There is a psychology out there that certain employees and people in the workplace have that is focused on providing results to others. It is an idea in business, as well, of giving something of value before you expect something in return. It is also a psychology of responding to someone else’s needs before you worry about your won.
The more people are hesitating before starting work, the more likely they are to hesitate when they get into the job as well. In the answer to this question, there is also a push and pull between someones dedication to their job and other things. Obviously, most employers want people who are dedicated to what they do and not the other way around. Most employers are seeking and looking for people who will go forward and get one job or another done. When you are applying for jobs and interviewing, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the employer and not the other way around:
- Put your employer, or potential employer’s needs, first and not your own.
- Try and be selfless and focused on your employer’s needs.
- Find out what your employer (or potential employer’s) needs are, and tailor your approach to them.
By putting your employer or potential employer first you will be able to get jobs and hold on to them in almost all economic climates. Not always, but more often than not.
The psychology of putting the needs of your employer first and understanding their needs may seem overly simplistic and obvious. While it may seem obvious and simplistic, the truth of the matter is that not being able to do this is the reason most people fail to get jobs and others lose jobs. CEOs of major corporations lose jobs when it becomes clear they care more about their bonus than the company. People lose jobs when we learn they are off doing something personal instead of attending to a corporate crisis. Clock watchers are fired and laid off when the economy gets slow because people know these people are more concerned about what they can take (money) than what they can give (time and extra work). People who are applying for jobs who are hungry and appear eager to work are most often hired. People who are taciturn and do not seem eager to work hard are not hired as often. People whose loyalty is to other employees, and not the company in general, more often lose their jobs and are not promoted over those who are not.
We respect loyalty to institutions. It is bred into us. Soldiers have gone off to fight and risked their lives for thousands of years out of loyalty to their institutions. Loyalty and contribution to an “institution” rather than any specific individual, for example, is almost universally respected. When you work for a company or any other sort of institution you need to look at your relationship and determine what you can give to the institution. The more you can give and the more you can contribute, the more the organization will ultimately fulfill your needs as well.
Address Small Weaknesses For Big Gains
January 6, 2009
What You Will Learn
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Several months ago I was trying to sell a commercial property and had the most ridiculous time contacting the selling agent. I would get a call that would go something like this:
“Hi, I have an offer on the property. Please call me back to discuss.” These calls would typically come at 7:00 am or 9:00 pm, during which I was generally unreachable.
Excited about the offer, I would call the agent back. I would try him two or three times throughout the day and never reach him. This process would go on for days. In one case, I could not reach him for over one week.
Although I do not like to go into detail about people’s strengths and weaknesses, I can say with confidence this particular agent had enough business at the time he should not have been using a cell phone to run his business. Instead, he should have had an assistant scheduling all of his calls or at least forwarding him his messages.
One time, after over a week of trying to reach this guy I finally tracked down the agent’s brother and explained to him I could not reach the agent and needed to speak with him immediately. The agent’s brother was also an agent in the same real estate firm. Around 15 minutes later my real estate agent called me back:
“Who the hell are you to be calling my brother? He does not need to know when I am returning my calls and not doing so.”
“You called me 10 days ago and said you had an offer,” I told my agent. “I have another offer on the property and need to know whether to take it or not.”
“I do not care! You should not be calling my business partner!”
“Listen, you need to stop running your business from a cell phone,” I told him.
“You have no idea what you are talking about. I have probably the best reputation of any real estate agent around here. I run my business the right way.”
“No you don’t. You need an assistant. No one should have to spend over a week trying to get in touch with you. It makes no sense.”
The agent then hung up on me. It would be two more days before I would know the details of the sketchy offer his client was proposing.
A few weeks ago I learned this agent was under investigation from the state for various reasons, including not having renewed his real estate license and operating his business without a license. This detail, like the cell phone, may seem like a small one, but life and our jobs are often in the details.
So many people’s careers are stalled and in many cases derailed because they refuse to listen to various forms of advice to improve themselves. People often believe at some point they have “succeeded” and any subsequent advice they receive is something that is unnecessary.
Many people will do one annoying thing in their job over and over again and not realize it may sabotage their entire future. Eventually people notice and this causes their careers to stall again and again.
One of the hardest things for all of us to do is to be aware of our weaknesses and take the appropriate action in response. However, very few of us do this. Instead, we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Fixing the mistakes that people are bringing to our attention is something very few of us have the ability to do.
People often succeed for very simple reasons. For example, one of the most common reasons people succeed is because of their ability to practice something over and over again. Another reason for success is an uncanny ability to network or get along with people. Just as people succeed for the smallest reasons, so, too, do they fail for the smallest reasons.
Several years ago a very intelligent young man was working for me while applying to law schools. Because he seemed to have a good amount of potential, I started seeing if there were other areas inside the company where I could use him. We had recently launched a company and I asked him to come up with “The Top 101 Reasons” someone should be using the company.
After a week I met with him and he had only come up with 15 reasons. I was very surprised but told him to come back the next week with 101 reasons.
Like many people, he came up with one explanation or another about why he could not do this. I listened, told him that was fine but I wanted 101 reasons and anyone interested in being a lawyer should be able to come up with 101 reasons to use something quite easily.
The next week he came back and he had about 40 reasons but many of the reasons were very similar to the 15 he had listed originally. I gave him a 15 minute lecture about the importance of applying himself and doing good work and being creative. The next week he came back with about 60 reasons and said for the life of him he could not come up with more. Over the next 10 minutes or so, I sat with him and quickly listed an additional 41 reasons. All I needed to do was be creative, and it was quite simple.
In spite of getting a 99% on the Law School Admissions Test and graduating from a good college with an “A” average this young man still did not know how to be creative.
“What are you going to do if you are defending a client in court?” I asked him. “How are you possibly going to be able to defend someone if you cannot think on your feet? You need to be able to argue a point with convincing reasons all day long.”
“I don’t know,” he told me.
He ended up going to law school and getting a job with a good law firm. I wish him the best. I never in a million years would want to use him as my attorney, though. This weakness is something he needs to improve upon. It is one thing that could hold him back permanently and ruin what could otherwise be an illustrious career.
This particular man could not apply himself creatively. He could probably do a lot of other things very well. However, this is a huge weakness if you want to be an attorney. This is the sort of weakness that could literally stop him in his tracks. When he gets into a law firm and starts being called upon to be creative and create arguments, his inability to do so will likely be a real turn off to his employers. These same people will stop giving him work and may then give the work to others. Pretty soon no one may want to work with him. He will then need to find another job. This process could go on for a couple of decades unless the guy deals with the situation.
Small weaknesses have a major impact on us unless we address them.
One of my first legal jobs required me to be a very good proofreader. While I could proofread things very well, my real interest was always in making in-depth legal arguments. However, I was writing legal opinions for a judge and punctuation and proofreading was extremely important. I learned and, after a couple of very stern lectures, I addressed this weakness. When I got into private practice and worked for a law firm I never had a problem with this. However, over the past several years I no longer carefully proofread my work and have others do it. Recently I read something one of my former employees posted online about how I am a terrible writer and stupid because my work is not well-proofed when I give it to the proofreaders in our company. This is an example of my weakness coming back to haunt me. Our weaknesses will always come back to haunt us and people will always call us on these weaknesses.
About a year ago I was deluged with venture capitalists trying to give money to my business. I never took any money by the way. Due to their sudden interest in giving me money, I started reading books about venture capital because I did not even know what it was. I am someone who helps people get jobs and not someone who understands high finance. One book was written by a venture capitalist talking about things he looks for in the Chief Executive Officer of the company when he is making an investment. He recounted how the venture capitalist came very close to making a $100,00,000 investment in a company but pulled out at the last minute. The reason? The CEO had the habit of coming into work and staying in his office. He never left his office or walked around the company. He viewed this as a huge fault because no one in the company ever saw him. Apparently this was something he’d also been criticized for throughout his career. Due to this one personality foible, the venture capitalist did not make the investment.
When many of us are confronted by our employers with various weaknesses we react in a manner that is not appropriate. We try to blame the person who is giving us feedback and find reasons they are wrong. We may provide them with a series of ridiculous justifications and explanations as to why they are wrong and not making any sense. We may point to someone else who possesses the same issue they are bringing to our attention. This is a huge mistake. If someone is going out of their way to bring a weakness of yours to your attention, you need to do everything within your power to make sure you pay attention. You often do not get a second chance to address a weakness. You need to always do what you can to address your weaknesses because one small thing could hold you back. Examples:
Not having an assistant and running a big business by cell phone.
Not proofreading your work carefully enough.
Not leaving your office to talk to people.
Not pushing yourself to be creative in a profession where it is required.
You have weaknesses. I am confident of this. All of us do. What are yours? Fix them! If you cannot fix your weaknesses, find a profession where these weaknesses do not matter and people do not care about them. If you are in a profession where these weaknesses are holding you back, you need to quickly address them.
Many people know their weaknesses and they have been reminded of them again and again throughout their careers. They will often deny their weakness is an issue. They will continually find reasons to justify what is going on is not a weakness–otherwise they would not be doing well. This can happen in your personal or your work life. Many people simply cannot address their weaknesses.
I know a man who in his late 30s never had a girlfriend for more than two weeks. He is good looking and successful. He has a good personality and is very easy to talk to. He does not have any major personality or other weaknesses except one: he is incredibly cheap.
A gorgeous girl could walk up to him and start talking to him and he might get her phone number. He would then go over to her house and pick her up for a dinner date. Typically the girl would be all dressed up and excited to be going out with such a seemingly great guy. She would be in for a surprise. He would take her to a restaurant like Burger King for dinner. In the car he would explain to her he always likes to “go Dutch” on his first few dates. The woman would be astonished not only because she was taken to a fast food restaurant, but also because she was forced to pay for her share of the meal.
It gets worse, however.
In the car he might bring up the fact he really likes the girl and there is no reason she should have to share the expense of the gas required to get to Burger King. Once he gets to the restaurant, he would only order something like french fries because he will have eaten a peanut butter sandwich or something before going out on the date to save money. If he manages to ever get a girl to come to his apartment, she would be astonished to find he is an attorney living in a 300 square foot studio apartment in a bad neighborhood with furniture that looks like it was purchased at a garage sale.
I have no idea what this guy does with all his money. He does not use drugs and he does not support his parents. I think he just has an aversion to spending a single cent. I remember about 10 years ago a girl I was dating at the time sat him down to have a conversation with him about this because she thought the entire thing was so bizarre. He is a good-looking successful guy with a good personality and girls would go out with him and date him in a second were it not for this. She tried everything she could to show him the error of his ways. I tried this before and at least one other person I know tried this.
“Are you kidding? Girls love me! I do not need to do anything differently,” he always said. He is still denying this is an issue today. He could fix this. I do not know if it would require therapy, but he could fix it. Once he fixes it his life will change. He will know more people and have a different life. This one thing is holding him back, and he is in denial this is the reason his is so alone. It is very sad but it would be easy to fix.
Are you in denial about something you’re doing? You never want to be in denial about anything that can be improved and would change your life for the better. You need to do everything within your power to address small weaknesses that may be holding you back.
The worst thing we can possibly do is be delusional about our small weaknesses. When most people are confronted with a weaknesses they may choose to not pay attention. Pay attention to your small weaknesses.
The worst possible thing we can do when someone confronts us with our small weaknesses is to lash out and attack them. Many of us will discredit the messenger and tell them there is something wrong with them. It is not our fault. There is something wrong with the messenger.
One of the most astonishing things that ever happened to me was several years ago when I lived with a woman I’m no longer dating. For many years, I liked to go to 7-11 in the morning and get a Big Gulp Diet Coke which I would drink when driving to work. One day I went to the 7-11, got my Coke, and as I was driving to work I decided it didn’t have enough ice. Since I was close to home, I decided to get some more ice there. I must have been very quiet when I went into the house because after I got my ice I overheard my significant other in the back yard talking on a cordless phone.
“I just want Harrison to go out of town,” I heard her say. “I am sick of having to meet in hotel rooms for illicit sex with my other boyfriend during the day when Harrison is not home. I want to spend some quality time together sipping wine and just getting to know him. I cannot do this when Harrison is around.”
This particular person had been through a series of relationships which always ended because she could not commit. I thought this history was behind her and we could have a relationship. I was wrong.
I continued to listen to her conversation for the next 30 minutes. She went into vivid detail about how she was having a full-on affair with someone else. I was absolutely astonished at what I was hearing and I remember my knees going weak and my body sinking to the floor.
My significant other eventually ended the conversation and walked into the kitchen where I was collapsed on the floor, my heart racing and feeling extremely confused and angry.
“Why aren’t you at work?” she asked.
“I just heard your entire conversation,” I said. “I’m sorry. I came home to get some ice and did not mean to but I overheard you talking on the phone. I’m in a state of shock.”
My significant other stared at me for about 15 seconds without saying a word.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said. “I was talking to my mother about the dog. You must have been hearing things.”
This was one of the more astonishing episodes of my life. I was confronting her with irrefutable evidence of philandering and she simply denied she’d said any such thing. She turned the evidence around and tried to say I had literally heard a conversation in my head that was not actually spoken. In this case, the messenger of this information was me and I was attacked. Had it been someone else who had overheard this I am confident his or her reliability would have been attacked as well. When many people feel criticized they attack the messenger instead of facing the problem or weakness head on. As far as I know, this person is still unable to commit. Who knows how this is affecting her life. I imagine if she could address this one weakness she would be much happier.
Despite whatever success you have had, there is a good chance there is a weakness you have that is holding you back. Do not blow this weakness off. If someone brings the weakness to your attention, address it and do not attack the messenger. Our greatest improvements come when we fix small things that are holding us back.
Harness the Power of Your Subconscious Mind to Get a Job and Improve Your Career
October 21, 2008
I know of so many people who fail to get jobs and, ultimately, do not have good careers because they keep their minds cluttered with things that have nothing to do with their job search. I have wanted to write for some time about how to harness the subconscious mind in your job search. Many people get suspicious about this topic, however.
The wonderful thing about our minds is they can empower us. However, they can also lead us away from what we are trying to achieve. Throughout my career I have done my best to help people understand the power of the subconscious mind, especially in a job search. It is one of the most important factors to be aware of when it comes to looking for work. In fact, I think having an awareness of the subconscious mind is what enables the most successful people out there to achieve their goals.
What You Will Learn
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I would like to tell you a few stories about very successful people I have known and how they’ve used their subconscious minds to really shine.
As a child, I grew up with a friend who was a championship swimmer. To look at him, I could not figure out why he was so successful. Where the other swimmers were long and lean, he was heavyset. He had a secret, though. A few hours before every swim meet, he would say he was going to take a nap. He would not sleep, however. Instead, he would visualize what he wanted to happen at the swim meet. He visualized himself winning each race. He told me he viewed this as more important than swim practice.
My friend did this instinctively. No one told him to do it. No one taught him. He was naturally inclined to motivate his subconscious mind. He was creating the result he wanted by visualizing it. He saw what the race would look like, how hard he would need to push himself to win, what it would sound like when he won. This process worked for him.
Several years later, I was in Harper Library at the University of Chicago. A friend next to me was studying for an economics test. This friend never studied for more than an hour or two for any test. Other students, like me, would hole up for weeks in the library cramming for the same tests. He would breeze through each exam and enjoy some downtime while others were studying. All he would do was look briefly at the page he was studying, then look up and begin thinking for a few minutes. I asked him later what he was doing. He told me he was visualizing what would happen in each economics problem. This was a unique use of his subconscious mind. Here, he was becoming incredibly familiar with the subject matter and incorporating it into who he was, and into his entire understanding about life. He was someone who received perfect grades and went on to do very important work in the field of economics.
There are many ways to program your subconscious mind in order to become the kind of person you want to be. Programming your mind can put you in the job you desire and get you the promotions and advancement that you seek, if you do it correctly. The most popular way to program your subconscious mind, of course, is through visualization. Visualize the result you want to achieve before the event – the interview or whatever else you are pursuing. But it goes much deeper than this. In order to truly get the job you want and become the person you want to be, you must learn to harness your subconscious mind to the degree that your perception of yourself and the world changes.
I have read and studied a great deal about the subconscious mind in my life. Most studies recommend you write down the result you are seeking and then review this result at least 1-3 times per day and repeat it out loud to yourself. For example, you could write down:
By the first of January, I am employed as an engineering manager by a prominent Mid-Western company, earning at least $80,000 a year. I like my job and I have found a company that is a good fit for me in all respects. My company is stable and I like the people with whom I’m working. I have upward potential in the company and am on course to earn a bonus of at least $20,000 the following year.
By reading this over and over, you will magnetize yourself to attract this result. You will also see the world in terms of providing opportunities for you to reach this goal. You will constantly be reminded of this goal and your energies will be directed toward achieving it.
Some years ago, I became very interested in flying and I took pilot lessons. What is so interesting about flying is that you need to correct your course thousands of times during a flight in order to reach your goal. If you stop correcting, you will never arrive at your destination. In an airplane, you use the instruments at hand to constantly check whether you are on or off course. The goals you write down are similar to these instruments. You need to constantly check them to make sure you will reach your destination.
Writing down goals is something you need to do to get where you want to go. You are the person you believe you are. If you set higher goals for yourself, you will likely reach them.
In addition to writing down your goals, another way to charge yourself up and create lasting change is through self-hypnosis or life-hypnosis. I have been doing this daily in one form or another for over 20 years. Essentially, this simply involves going into a deeply relaxed state and repeating to yourself what you want to achieve. You can do this yourself or you can even purchase an MP3 player to guide you into a state of self-hypnosis. I think these methods are extremely effective and should be used by everyone. They are a wonderful way to get your subconscious mind pointed in the right direction.
Most people will not follow the advice I am offering because they may feel it’s far fetched. But I want to assure you that it works. Doing everything possible to positively influence the subconscious mind had produced consistently amazing results, in my life, and in the lives of others around me.
You will never reach the levels of success you are seeking, and deserve, until you have learned to visualize where you are going. Remind yourself daily of who you want to be and who you can be. Never stop reminding yourself of what you are going to achieve and become.
I want to describe a small exercise I perform daily which has had fairly profound results in attracting positive energy. Remember, you are what you think, and the more positive you are, the more positive people you will attract in your life, and the more positive you will become.
Each morning I go running for about 55 minutes. During this run, I start asking myself:
-What am I happy about in my life now?
-What am I proud of in my life now?
-What am I grateful for in my life now?
-Who do I love in my life?
-Who have I helped today, and who do I want to help?
I constantly train my mind to focus on the positive, and I do this for no less than 10 minutes a day. This makes me happier to see people throughout the day. It makes me excited to contribute and help others. It makes people attracted to me in positive ways.
Think about yourself. Do you get down about your current job search? Are you angry about having to look for a job? You need to stay in a good frame of mind, and to train your subconscious mind to dwell on positive, happy, and harmonious thoughts. This is the final factor that will allow your subconscious mind to guide you into your perfect job.
If you follow this career advice, you will actually get more than just a better job. You will change your entire life experience. Harnessing your subconscious mind is something that has changed the lives and futures of everyone I know who has done it, for the better. It will change your life for the better, too.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars. 