Have Trust in Others and Be Ready to Seize Opportunity However it Presents Itself

Trusting people and being ready to take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself are two of the greatest skills anyone can have.  My life has been enriched in so many ways by often trusting people I should not have and by being aware of opportunities.  I have always been eager to trust people who do not appear to be trustworthy, because I know that in the act of trusting them I can allow them to see themselves as better people.  It also feels good to show people that you trust them.  Fundamentally, I have a belief that deep down all people [Read more]

As Seen on TV, P.T. Barnum, Penis Pills and Your Career

I confess that I took no pains to set my enterprising fellow-citizens a better example. I fell in with the world’s way; and if my “puffing” was more persistent, my advertising more audacious, my posters more glaring, my pictures more exaggerated, my flags more patriotic and my transparencies more brilliant than they would have been under the management of my neighbors, it was not because I had less scruple than they, but more energy, far more ingenuity, and a better foundation for such promises.             — P.T. Barnum

One of the greatest marketers of all time was P.T. Barnum who coined the phrase “The Greatest Show on Earth.”  P.T. Barnum was the absolute king of promoting various events during the 1880′s and understood advertising and marketing concepts that are still [Read more]

You Will Succeed in Your Job and Job Search When You Are Concerned With Giving and Not Taking

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 [Read more]

Address Small Weaknesses For Big Gains

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 [Read more]

The Importance of Planting Seeds: My Experience With the Scientologists

“And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: a sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bore fruit a hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”—Luke 8:4-8.

For several years I underwent a ritual throughout various suburbs of Detroit that year after year resulted in my dramatically increasing my income and customer base in the asphalt business. This ritual became effective year after year due to the power of “planting seeds” in my prospects’ minds. I have continued to use the power of “planting seeds” throughout my career to start businesses and expand various businesses year after year. When you plant seeds in prospects’ minds, they are far more likely to think of you when a need comes up in the future than if you [Read more]

You Need to Have Desire to Achieve Your Goals

In order for you to achieve the things you are capable of, you need to constantly be creating goals for yourself and creating a massive desire deep down to achieve these goals. There is nothing more important than having a desire deep down in you to achieve goals. Every single day you should have both long and short term goals that are fueled by desire. The larger your goals are, the greater your desire needs to be. A wish is far different than a desire. Everybody has wishes, but wishes are meaningless without desire:

• I am sure every single freshman entering a college class each year wishes that s/he would get all “A’s”. However, only a small fraction of these people ever end up with all A’s. The people who get all A’s figure out how to make it happen. They work harder than most of their other classmates. They often take classes they know they will do well in. They push themselves to get the best results they possibly can, and get these sorts of grades because of the incredible effort they put in.
• Every single person wishes that they had all of the money they wanted to fulfill all of their dreams. However, only a small fraction of people ever have all the money they want. The people who do have all the money they want have a massive desire to get these results. This desire enables them to work more than others and to see opportunities where others see none.
• Most people wish that they could make a huge impact on the world by doing something positive. However, only a small fraction of people ever do this. Instead, they have no particular desire to do anything of major significance and just meander through life watching other people in the world who have managed to do great things. They may sit on the sidelines and criticize these people. They may watch others living lives from a distance. The people who are out there achieving great things are the ones who have the most desire.

You will not have the career that your are entitled to claim for yourself if you are only wishing for it. Wishes cannot give you what you are seeking. When you have a wish, however, that is backed by a desire, you will start to achieve what you are looking for because you will create opportunities for yourself and your desire will drive you to excell. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice gets trapped in a wonderland and not knowing how to get [Read more]

Create Rules that Make You Feel Successful, Not Unsuccessful

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 [Read more]

Communicate With Relevance and Connect With Your Audience

One of the biggest secrets in marketing is the more relevant your communication, the more willing people are to respond. You can read and study everything you want about marketing, but if you are not communicating with relevance to your audience, nothing else really matters. When you apply for a job, or when you work for someone, you need to make your communication as relevant as possible. I’d like to tell you a quick story about someone I hired four years ago who communicated to me with relevance. One day, I received a phone call from a man in Europe, telling me he intended to move to the United States for work. He told me he’d researched our organization and was impressed. He told me what areas of the organization needed work. He communicated in ways that were relevant to me and despite the fact I didn’t know this person, I opened up and began speaking about our company. He then told me if I would like to speak further with him, I was welcome to fly him to the United States for more discussions. When I took him up on his offer, he discussed with me what he felt the organization needed, and he continued to communicate with relevance. I ended up having this person come to work in the U.S. I had him live in my house for six weeks of training, and even paid all sorts of immigration and other expenses to bring this person over. He now manages one of my most important companies. Since he started with the company, his salary has doubled. This person never sent me a resumé. This person never applied in response to an advertisement. This person contacted me, the CEO of the company, by calling and doing everything he could to make a connection. This person never would have been hired had he simply sent a résumé or gone a more traditional route. He might not even have been hired had he volunteered to fly himself over. Making our organization pay for the flight got the company invested, and certainly made me pay attention. This person probably never would have been hired had he not researched exactly what our [Read more]

Focus on Other Geographic Areas to Get Your Job Search Going

“The median job search among those winning positions in the third quarter lasted nearly 4.4 months,” up from 3.6 months in the second quarter.

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

Moving is stressful and expensive, and some people may simply be unwilling to take that step.  However, fewer people are relocating, no doubt, due to the state of the housing market.  Job seekers eager to move for the right job may find themselves trapped by an inability to sell their homes, and perhaps are even wishing they were renters right now. One of the reasons it’s taking so [Read more]