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 in use today.  He was able to make an absolute fortune by capitalizing on sensational headlines and arousing curiosity in various sideshows.  He knew what people wanted to see and hear, and he aroused their curiosity.  He used language and was able to create a sense of urgency so strong that people often fought to get into his shows.  He was also a man of the people and able to identify with the people around him. One of PT Barnum’s greatest lessons, however, involves the importance of promotion.  One of my favorite quotes is by P.T. Barnum is, “Without promotion something terrible happens: Nothing!”  In fact, it is the people who are most successful at promotion that are able to achieve the most success in virtually every calling there is.  Without promotion very little can happen.  Businesses who do not promote go out of business.  People who do not promote themselves successfully also fail to get the sorts of jobs they are capable of getting.  It is a huge tragedy when people fail because they are simply unable (or unwilling) to promote themselves as they should.  I wonder to myself if you, or people you know, are not living the life you are capable of due to an inability to effectively promote yourself.  Many people are, and this is a massive tragedy.  In fact, most people out there do not know how to successfully promote themselves. Last night I went to Target with my wife, and I was pleased to see that they had several areas of the store that are now dedicated to “As Seen on TV” products:

• sandpaper you put on your hand that can remove all the hair off your body
• a tool to file down your dogs nails
• a blanket with holes for your hands so you can wear it
• scratch remover for a car
• a towel that soaks up anything, and can be used thousands of times
• putty that can glue together anything
• a carrot chopper
• a juice maker

There used to be an “As Seen on TV” store in Santa Barbara and, when I would go in there, I would spend hours and hours inside this particular store looking at stuff.  These stores are my dream come true.  I wish there were more “As Seen on TV” stores, and there were Targets stuffed with every good that had ever been sold on television.  I would probably never leave. Why am I so interested in the stuff that is “As Seen on TV”?  I am completely and utterly fascinated by this stuff because, with extremely limited exceptions, all of the stuff being sold is complete junk that is being marketed incredibly effectively.  The only thing any of these products has is that, somewhere along the line, an incredible copywriter and/or salesperson has gotten behind these products and endowed them with super human qualities.  People line up to buy these things the same way people used to line up to see P.T. Barnum’s shows.  These products also appeal to the average person–i.e., all of us.  The people who are marketing these products are absolute geniuses in many, many respects and they could teach you and I a ton about getting a job.  People that know how to market things really have an advantage in the world. Before I go any further I want to make something clear to you.  When you know how to package and sell something, you can do anything.  The ability to sell is among the most important skills there is, and has ever been.  More importantly, the ability to sell yourself is exceptionally important.

• When you can sell yourself, you can get any job you want.
• When you can sell yourself, you can get promotions.
• When you can sell yourself, you can help your company expand.
• When you can sell yourself, you are capable of incredible achievement.

You need to understand the skills of selling.  If you can sell yourself, you can do anything. Massive fortunes are made by the people who are able to market these products successfully on television. Do you have any idea how much money people make who sell this stuff on television successfully?  It would absolutely boggle your mind.  People who are able to take inanimate objects like this and package them are among the most successful people out there in marketing. The woman who cleans my teeth in my dentist office lives in a modest suburb in Los Angeles.  However, each week she takes some of the most outrageous trips you have ever imagined.  Her best friend’s husband came out with some sort of pill that he claims makes men’s “private parts” larger and he advertises it in magazines, on television and other various locations.  The guy has gone from living like an average Joe to spending his weekends taking his friends (and my dental hygienist) to Rio, Cancun, Hawaii and other locations on his private jet.  The guy apparently makes millions of dollars a month with his penis pill.  He started out advertising in magazines, moved to television, and the rest is history.  There is nothing in these pills but some common herbs and vitamins, but none of this seems to matter.  It is his ability to sell this product that makes all of the difference.  I can tell you that as far as I know, probably no advertising executive on Madison Avenue and in any of the largest advertising firms on the planet has a lifestyle like this. You will not find most of these successful marketers (like the guy with the penis pill) working in large advertising agencies.  The people who are marketing these products in infomercials and other areas are typically “outsiders” to the big corporate advertising firms.  The reason is that most large advertising firms do not want to do direct response television advertisements where they need to be accountable immediately for the result.  Large advertising firms and others prefer typically to do “branding” sorts of advertisements where the results the ads get are not really measurable.  You would prefer to do this sort of advertising if you were a big advertising firm, as well.  If you were a big advertising agency, you would not want to have to be accountable for the results of your work either. However, the people who do direct response advertising on television, the people who sell penis pills and people like P.T. Barnum, all need to be accountable the second their ad runs.  If people do not purchase their product, they do not earn money.  Therefore, the people who promote these sorts of products develop the most outrageous and effective skills they can to sell these products and get your attention. One of the most interesting facts, that has been true as long as I remember, is the fact that the National Enquirer is read by more people each week than Reader’s Digest, Time, US News and several other publications put together.  The National Enquirer is incredibly popular.  In addition, some of the highest paid writers in America also work at the National Enquirer.  The key to what they are doing is writing the headlines that appear on the cover. These headlines, as I am sure you can remember, are absolutely fascinating.  But they sell magazines, lots and lots of magazines.  While other magazines experience financial problems, people keep buying the National Enquirer in supermarket checkout lines to the tune of millions of copies a week.  We buy the National Enquirer because it interests us. An interesting article  by Jay Gourley ran in the Washington Monthlyin 1981 that discussed the differences between “quality press” and the “popular press.”  This article discussed that the popular press follows the motto “tell them what they want to hear” while the quality press tells them “what they ought to hear.”  Gourley wrote that, ”Popular journalists generally see quality journalists as dimwitted and pretentious. Quality journalists generally see popular journalists as immoral and brash.”   This is a conflict that exists everywhere between advertisers selling penis pills and large pharmaceutical companies, between magazines like the National Enquirer and The Economist, and between large advertising firms and individuals out there peddling carrot peelers in 30 minute infomercials.  However, I would submit to you that what ultimately matters is whether or not something is sold and people buy it.  The most important thing is whether or not people buy something. I am constantly amazed when I see people with very little intelligence or academic prowess come out with a book about this or that, and sell millions and millions of copies.  It could be a story about a woman who spent a romantic night with a famous man and is writing a tell all.  It could be a 200+ page book about a diet someone likes.  There are so many ridiculous books out there it is difficult to believe.  These people make millions of dollars writing books about the most stupid topics.  Simultaneously, there are tons of books out there written by superstar academics that discuss stuff that is really important.  These people are professors at the best universities all over the country.  However, more than often we are buying the books about crap, than we are the books by the really smart people.  What everything ultimately comes down to is whether or not something sells.  It does not matter how smart you are, or how many degrees you have.  It matters if you can get people to ultimately pull the trigger and buy what you are selling. Recently, I have started to read and study the works of various copywriters.  I have studied copywriters on and off for the past decade or so, but am always drawn back to their works for various reasons.  These copywriters run workshops that they charge thousands of dollars to attend, sell binders full of other best ads for hundreds of dollars, and will basically sell you anything if you pay them money.  Primarily, I am drawn back to the work of copywriters because I am amazed time and time again when I see products and people come out of nowhere to dominate the national consciousness.  Because I am so interested in getting people jobs, the idea that the quality of our letter to an employer, a headline, or something along those lines can have an incredible influence on your candidacy and whether you end up getting the job of your dreams is fascinating to me. There is also something to be said of the fact that when people are following the rules and doing things the same way others are, they may not be getting the best results they are capable of getting.  This is true as well with your job search.  P.T. Barnum, infomercials, other sales people and vehicles outside of the mainstream are more often than not the ones who are actually moving products and selling lots of stuff.  The writers for the National Enquirer are some of the highest paid writers in the world–not the writers for the New York Times.  Everything is about the ability to arouse peoples’ interest and get them to buy something. The most successful people and marketers are able to get your attention.  They are able to get you to part with your hard earned money and they are able to close the deal. What does this have to do with your job search? It has everything to do with your job search.  Your job search is no different than the conflict going on in the business world between traditional advertisers and the mavericks like P.T. Barnum and the guys with infomercials out there.  What do advertisers like P.T. Barnum and  ”As Seen on TV” ads and others have in common?  They grab your attention, make an offer that motivates you to act by picking up the phone, signing up (or whatever).  These ads ask for action and they try and make the sale now–and not later.  They know that their objective is to get you to act because if they do not get you to act

• … they will not fill their circus with seats
• … they will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising their gadget

Traditional advertisers do not care what results they get (for the most part) because it does not matter to them.  They are used to following the rules.  They run ”image” and not “direct response” advertising.  This is a massive difference between what the people who are making the real money advertising are doing. In image advertising the results are not measurable.  When you need someone to pick up the phone, or fill out an order form and order a product right now, you had better bet you are going to do everything within your power to sell the product as effectively as you can right now. In your job search, I want to encourage you to think creatively and understand that you need to stand out with your applications.  You need to get employers’ attention and get them to call you.  You need to arouse their curiosity, and you need to have an offer that looks better than the next guy or gal.  It may seem unusual to you that people are getting incredibly rich selling stupid stuff like pet nail files on television, but they understand something most people do not: It is all about the ability to package and sell something that matters.  It is more important how something is packaged and marketed many times than what the product is.  It is all about the marketing.  Everything is about the marketing.  Regardless of how good you may look on paper, regardless of how good your resume and experience are, if you do not package yourself correctly you are doing yourself a huge disservice. THE LESSON Your success necessarily depends on your ability to promote yourself. To succeed in your job search, you need to find creative ways to differentiate yourself from the competition; in order for employers to call you, you need to grab and hold their attention. Proper packaging is the key to selling anything, including yourself; even the best resume will prove worthless if your presentation is shoddy.

“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 do not. An extremely effective secret to getting a job, getting a raise and more is based on planting seeds in your prospects’ minds. In this case, your prospects should be the potential employers you would like to work for as well as your current employer if you are seeking more money or responsibility. So few people understand the power of planting seeds, however. The inability to plant seeds is one of the biggest weaknesses of most people in the world–whether they are businesses, or individuals seeking a job or advancement. So many people out there are simply so short term in their focus that they are only looking for instant gratification. If someone or something cannot provide them instant gratification, they are not interested. This movement between one form of instant gratification to the other is something that hurts businesses and people. Yesterday I walked into a store called “Chrome Hearts” in the Malibu Country Mart in Malibu. I have been looking for a money clip for the past few years because my current money clip is getting near the end of its life. When I walked into the store, a beautiful woman walked up to me and asked if she could help me. I told her I was interested in looking at money clips. She told me they had two sizes “small and large” and I told her I was interested in seeing the small. “It’s $825,” she said. “$825! Wow that’s expensive,” I said. There was no way in hell I was going to spend $825 for a money clip; however, I thought it might be something I could ask my wife for when we had our anniversary in a few months, for example. “I guess not,” she said rudely. She then disappeared and completely lost interest in helping me and turned around and left me standing there. I was still interested in seeing the money clip but was extremely turned off by her attitude. I will never go into the store again. Had the sales person showed me the money clip, let me touch it and been nice to me, I would have likely found my wife and brought her back and suggested to her this might make a good anniversary gift for me one day. Instead, I was completely turned off and turned away. In my asphalt business, I had a tradition that I would always leave a brochure with every single house in the neighborhoods I worked in once a year. It did not matter if the owner was home or not, I always left a brochure. When they answered the door, I also went through the same routine each year. “I can help your driveway,” I’d tell them, my teeth gleaming in the sunlight, my khaki pants and white oxford shirt fresh from the dry cleaners (heavy starch), my hair slicked back smelling like mangos. In front of their house I would have my Chevy Suburban with its emergency yellow roof beacon twirling. This was important. Sometimes people would rush outside and grab their children and hustle them inside. “Is there a gas leak in the neighborhood!?” people would sometimes shout from their porches in alarm. “No, but if you don’t do something about your driveway…” I would always hand the homeowners a copy of my brochure. The cover to the brochure warned:

Less than 48 hours from now it will be too late to seal coat your driveway. We only come by once a year! Less than three months from now, the Michigan winter may kill your driveway.Call 1-800-SEAL-NOW and your driveway will be sealed in the next 48 hours. Guaranteed. Don’t let ignorance let you make a decision you’ll forever regret!

In addition to the brochure, I always included some helpful information about asphalt that I had written that year. It might be something about how to take care of your asphalt, tips about how to hire someone like me, and more. For years I left this information at thousands of peoples’ homes regardless of whether or not they were at home. Every year for almost a decade I performed the same ritual with the same brochure. In the first year of doing this ritual a lot of people had me do their driveways. After several years of doing this people actually would rush up to my truck like it was an ice cream truck to make sure that I did their driveways. They felt like they already knew me because I had been giving them information and dropping hints to them about doing there asphalt for years. I had been dropping seeds. By the time I stopped doing this business, I had people practically throwing money at me begging me to do the work. The secret I had been following was planting seeds. None of my competitors ever planted seeds like I did. Their seed may have consisted of a small advertisement in the Yellow Pages. By giving people useful information I was consistently planting seeds and by following a ritual I made sure that my potential clients also knew how to act. I have managed and run a legal recruiting firm for almost a decade. During that time, the substantial majority of people who have become recruiters in the company are the same people I have placed. While I hate to say this, these hires have for the most part come from my ability to also plant seeds. On the few occasions when one of the attorneys I have been working with has shown promise to be an exceptional legal recruiter, I have said something like: “You should consider legal recruiting in the future. I think you would be really good at it.” Invariably, one or two years later most of the people I have said this to in the past have called me and told me they were interested in recruiting. Some of them are subsequently then hired. This is all the result of planting seeds. Another thing about the exercise of planting seeds is that by the time these attorneys come to me to discuss being recruiters they have already spent the past couple of years thinking about being legal recruiters. Consequently, they generally hit the ground running and are far more effective than the average recruiter. In addition, they are more committed and better at their jobs. Think about the times you have planted seeds in peoples’ minds and the results this has had. Think about the times that people have planted seeds for you. When I am working with a candidate seeking a legal job, I believe one of my greatest skills is planting seeds. When very good recruiters are deep into their work, they have a very good sense of where their candidates are likely to get interviewed and hired. I will start saying things to my candidates like this:

• “If you can get a job at this firm, you will really have done something special.”
• “You would really fit in well at this firm.”
• “I think you are going to do the best you have ever done in an interview when you interview with this firm.”
• “They are really going to like you at this firm.”

This almost always works. The candidate I am dealing with ends up going to the firm I am promoting in their candidate’s interest. This is in all cases the result of planting seeds. When I was 16 years old, there were a bunch of advertisements running on television showing volcanoes (representing breakthroughs) and saying stuff like “Increase your IQ by 30 points–page 124!” The promise was that if you read a book called Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard all sorts of miraculous things would happen to you. At the time I was incredibly motivated and worried about being able to get into Harvard College. This was beginning to look like all but an impossibility given my performance in chemistry, for one. To this day, I do not know how I passed that class. In any event, I picked up Dianetics and read it. None of the promised changes happened and the book did not make a tremendous amount of sense to me. At the time I knew nothing about Scientology but was very interested in anything that could help me pass high school chemistry and get into Harvard College. I am not proud to admit that I used to purchase clothes at Goodwill when I was in high school. One day I was in Royal Oak, Michigan after school and wandered out of the Goodwill with a sweater or something I had purchased for a few dollars. I came across a little Scientology store front that had a sign out front that stated “Free Personality Test!!” This was too much to pass up. Since I had also tried to decipher some L. Ron Hubbard recently in the book with the volcano on front, I decided to take the test. I went inside and took the personality test. As I was waiting for the test to be graded, I was taken into a basement, seated on a plastic fold out chair and shown a film about the evils of psychiatry. There appeared to be a family living in the basement and several children scurried out of the room as they prepared an old projector for me to watch the film. I still do not remember much about it to this day; however, I do remember something about a football player getting horribly injured and people saying stuff like “he’ll never walk again!” when the football player was unconscious. Sure enough, the guy never walked again after being treated by a succession of evil psychiatrists but did walk after being introduced to Scientology. After some time the guy who had given me the test came down to speak with me and bring me up to his office. “Are you sure you read Dianetics?” he asked me. “Yeah, I read it,” I said matter of factly. “Well your test is among the worst we have ever seen. Your graphs are alarming. I will go over them with you right now.” He sat me down and explained to me that I needed an emergency Scientology intervention because a bunch of psychological things were wrong with me. It must have taken him an hour to tell me how messed up he thought I was. Then he started asking me if I could somehow come up with $2,000. I needed something called “auditing” and a few courses immediately or I was going to crash and burn. He asked me what my parents did and if they would be interested in paying for all of the services I needed. “How much is all this going to cost to fix these issues?” I asked him. “Well $2,000 to just get you functioning normally and at least $30,000 to effectively address the issues.” He showed me a couple of tin cans hooked up to something called an “E-meter” that they planned on using on me (if I came up with $2,000). Given the fact that I was in the position of shopping for school clothes at Goodwill, I knew there was absolutely no way my parents were going to give me $2,000 to give to the Scientologists. Since I could not afford the services, I became interested in learning about the guy I was speaking with. I found it fascinating that he was living in a store with what appeared to be a couple of other families and was telling me I was screwed up. He told me he had read Dianetics while on a ship in the navy and this had changed his life. He volunteered to work for the Scientologists after this great read. Between periodically telling me about himself, he encouraged me to investigate other options for coming up with $2,000, such as selling my car. That was a nonstarter. While I was understandably upset with the results of the personality test, I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do. I had nothing to give. A week or so after this I received my first correspondence from the Church of Scientology. It was a brochure or a book or something. This was 1986. Over the past 22 years I have moved at least 15 times (more times than I can count). I have moved to numerous different states, lived in dorms in various schools, lived in various apartments and homes. Within a few weeks of arriving at these addresses, correspondence from the Church of Scientology suddenly appears. They send me voluminous amounts of information and it just keeps coming–in 2000-2007 I received information from them almost every single day. While the information has slowed down recently, I am confident that they have communicated with me via mail thousands and thousands of times. At least three or four or my assistants have tried to cancel the mail from the Church of Scientology but they cannot. My ex-wife got so upset with all the mail she wrote them several letters and was at one point asking me to sue them when I was practicing law. I do not have opinions about the Scientologists one way or another. I have actually known some who were good people and I am sure they do a lot of good for some people. What is so astonishing to me, however, is how aggressively they have been “planting seeds” with me for over two decades. This is an example of being extremely proactive. The more proactive you are and the more seeds you plant, the better you are likely to do in the long run. What were the Scientologists attempting to accomplish with all this mail? While you would have to ask them, to me it appeared as if they were doing everything within their power to convince me that if I ever had a problem, or needed a new religion, I should think of them. They wanted top of mind awareness. They have succeeded in getting top of mind awareness with me. I am writing about them right now. How is this relevant to you and your career? You need to plant seeds and make sure that the people around you are aware of what you have to offer. You can do this in a ton of ways. You can send people copies of articles you have written or read, that are applicable to them and many more things. The point is you want to insure that you are always there for the people who are your potential employers. Top of mind awareness is huge. One example of something that can be very effective is after you interview with someone and find out something the person may be interested in, you can cut out a small article and send it to the person with a note that you thought of him or her while reading it. This sends a message that you care. Planting seeds is extremely effective and is something that helps people remember you. Remember, the world is huge and you need to do everything within your power to stick out. THE LESSON You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you  must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.

• “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 own. 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.

• 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 excel. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice gets trapped in a wonderland and not knowing how to get out, she moves between here and there. One morning she reaches a crossroad. She stops at the crossroad, confused over which road to take. She looks around her for advice and sees a white cat sitting on a boulder enjoying the warmth from the rising sun.

‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ questioned Alice. ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ ‘I don’t know where. . .’ ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

This parable shows that without a desire and a goal you will just wander aimlessly through life. When you replace wishes with desire, then the map becomes clear. Rather than wandering aimlessly through life you will have a destination and the path toward your goal will always be in front of you. When I was in college, on two separate occasions, different people that I was extremely competitive with announced that they were planning on going to the same law school. This story is not notable for one particular reason. It is instructive because of the way I reacted to this, and the lesson it taught me about desire. The smartest guy I knew from my childhood was attending the University of Michigan when I ran into him one evening in a restaurant in Detroit. From the time I was around 5 years old until I graduated from elementary school, this guy had infuriated me to no end. We would always get the #1 and #2 grades on every test we took in each class we were in together. The problem was that no matter how hard I tried I would always be #2. If he was a 97, I would be a 96 or a 95. It happened for several years of my life. His name was Josh and his dad was a professor at a local college. He was a really smart kid that consistently did better than me in every course. I had not seen Josh from the time I was 12 years old until I ran into him at that restaurant one evening. At the time we were both around 21. Josh announced to me that he was planning on applying to and going to the University of Virginia Law School. I have no idea why he had chosen this law school other than he told me he it was inexpensive compared to other schools. Josh was attending the University of Michigan at the time, and I was attending the University of Chicago. I had heard nothing about the University of Virginia Law School but the second he announced that he was planning on applying there, my radar went up and it immediately became something that I too decided I was interested in. I decided that if he was interested in attending this particular school, it must be a really good one. I felt the fire of competitiveness well up in me because I had spent a good portion of my boyhood competing with him. I was a couple of years away from being far enough along in college to apply to law schools, but at that moment I knew I had found a worthy desire and goal. Josh told me how hard the school was to get into and that it had been his dream to attend this school for several years. In that instant I started thinking that I should probably do whatever I could to attend this school as well. When I got back to school, my girlfriend introduced me to a friend of hers who was incredibly smart. He had achieved a perfect score on his LSAT’s and had some of the most incredible grades I had ever heard of anyone getting at the University of Chicago. My girlfriend and this individual had a strictly platonic relationship. However, I had been hearing for the past year of dating her how incredibly smart and talented this particular guy was. It was starting to piss me off a little. Since I had the experience of running into Josh a few months previously, I was understandably even more intrigued when this incredibly smart friend of my girlfriend announced that he too planned on going to the University of Virginia Law School. I was at a dinner with him and several other people, and everyone was sort of hanging on his words. Everyone seemed interested in what he was going to do. This guy was older than me by a few years and when it was time to apply to law schools, he got into the University of Virginia Law School and just about every other law school he applied to. But he chose the University of Virginia. For the next year or so I had to listen to my girlfriend talk about what a great law school this was. Between that and my competitor back in Michigan, it was all too much. I decided that I too was interested in this law school and became determined to do everything I could to get in. At this particular point in my life, it looked as if the last thing I should be doing was going to law school. I had been having a great time in the asphalt business during the summers, and was enjoying this particular line of work more than anything. In fact, I could not wait to get out of school each year so I could do asphalt work. But this particular goal energized me to no end. When I first learned about this school, I had probably a B+ average in school. Once I realized I would need almost all A’s if I stood a shot in hell of getting in this school, I started arranging my life so I got all A’s. I have no idea how I was able to do this until this day. Before taking various classes, I would call up the Dean of Admissions at the University of Virginia Law School and ask them if this was a good class to take. I think he was amused at me calling him, but they remembered me. As a third year college student, I went to meet the Assistant Dean of Admissions when he came to a law school fair in downtown Chicago, and I chatted with him for a long time. I told my teachers that would be writing recommendations for me in the future that I wanted to go to this law school. I took classes from people who had gone to the college there. I did everything within my power to establish an affiliation with the school, even though I was very far away. What I was did was create an incredible desire to go to this school. I even visited the school and spent a day attending classes. I did this on my own without an invitation from the school, and then wrote the school a letter telling them how important this experience had been to me. I dropped names in the letter of the students I met. During my last year of college I wrote another 10 page, single spaced letter to the Assistant Dean of Admissions as to why I should be let into the school. I remember that I had the letter photocopied at Kinkos and when I picked up the letter, there were other students working there who had read it. They were making fun of me and laughed when they gave it to me. However, what I had done was create an incredible desire to go to this school, and put everything I had behind this desire. I had even gotten a job in Washington DC my last year of college, so that I could live in Virginia to establish residence for a year if I did not get into the school initially (having residence in Virginia would have assisted me in getting into the school because there was a preference for in state students at the time). In summary, I did everything within my power to put myself in a position where I would get into the school, and when the time came to apply, I was accepted despite not having test scores anywhere near what I should have had and some other factors that worked against me. The point is that once you set goals for yourself you can achieve practically anything. You need to “get angry” and put some passion behind your goals in order to achieve them. In this particular instance, I used all of my competitive urges and directed them towards this school. I am very glad I did this in this particular instance, because there were a lot of really nice people at the school and attending has enriched my life immeasurably. Without this goal, however, I never would be where I am today. Without having made this goal an obsession I am 100% confident I never would have gotten into the school. I gave the school a filing cabinet of information about myself when I applied, and I am sure they too saw that I was obsessed. We want to be around people who like us. I want your career and life to change. I want you to get obsessed and focused on a goal. This is the only conceivable way your career is going to go to the highest level possible. Find a goal that charges you up and go all out in achieving this goal. Create desire. Nothing happens without strong desire. If you are meandering in your life, everything will change if you get a strong desire. Several years ago, I was in Chicago visiting a recruiter from our firm there. My company was small at the time, employing around 6 or 7 people at most. I was a recruiter at the time, and enjoyed my job and was committed to it. But the idea of getting people jobs had not yet become an all consuming desire. A woman from the Chicago area had been calling me in Los Angeles asking me to help her with her job search for weeks. I told her that I would meet with her the next time I came to Chicago. The woman had been an attorney at Motorola for most of her career and had recently experienced a series of incredible tragedies. Her husband had just died of a heart attack while playing tennis. Her son was handicapped and her mother was dying in her house and was hooked up to respirators as she was living out her last days. Worst of all, Motorola had recently done a massive downsizing and eliminated her job. She had no savings and incredible expenses associated with taking care of her handicapped son. I remember that I met her at the Sears Tower for coffee. She looked very professional, but in her face I could see a tremendous amount of pain. We talked for over an hour and she repeatedly asked me what I could do to help her. At the time, employing normal recruiting methods, there was absolutely nothing I could do to assist her in getting a job. The situation saddened me and made me feel like my life was meaningless and that I was a failure. Here was someone who wanted to work, whom I could not help. It was an awful feeling and it made me feel in many respects that the profession of recruiting was not what it should be doing if I could not help every single person out there. I thought of my own mother who was also widowed by her second husband. I thought of all the people out there who want to work but cannot, and over the next several weeks my desire to help this woman and others turned into an obsession. I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to ensure that people who wanted to work could. I remember sitting with that woman like it was yesterday and how she cried. I remember how it was so hard not break down in tears and hug her. While I am not telling you about this to sell services, over the next year I started companies such as Legal Authority (to assist attorneys with marketing themselves by direct mailing employers) and LawCrossing (which gathers every open job it can find on the Internet and puts these jobs in one place). Within one year, I had increased the size of the company from 7 to over 100 people and it kept growing. I soon launched businesses like EmploymentCrossing (to gather jobs in every field) and EmploymentAuthority (to assist executives with mass mailing) because my desire to help people get jobs had become an obsession. I really became obsessed with what I am doing and still am to this day. I have become both loved and hated for my obsession. In business, I frequently do everything I can to push people out of my way who stand between me and this obsession. Simultaneously, I have done everything within my power to ensure I am getting people jobs. I want people to know how to get jobs, not just from understanding how to search, but how to control their minds. I write about this daily. I read books faster than I can order them. I do tele-seminars. I work on my own mind, so I can help others. My desire to get people jobs is a massive obsession. It is all I think about. I think about it seven days a week, and I work seven days a week. Has this been good for me? Yes. My life has meaning and I feel like I am accomplishing something of great significance. I want to work all the time to forward your goals and I frequently get up at 3:00 am, then 4:00 am, then 5:00 am turbocharged to go to work because I am so enthusiastic about trying to help you. I need to force myself to go back to sleep, so I can get a decent night’s rest. I think about people like the woman who could not find a job and what I can do to change that every day. You need to have an all consuming desire for what you are trying to achieve. You need to find a desire which moves you. No matter how smart you are, no matter what has happened to you in your life, you can do great things if you put a massive desire behind your wishes. Wish big and create a desire, and your life and career will never be the same.

1. It is important to do well in school; and,
2. 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:

1. The size of the firm they are working at.
2. How prestigious this firm is considered by the legal community.
3. How much money their firm is paying relative to other firms.
4. The quality of law schools and pedigrees the attorneys have at the firm for which they’re working.
5. After several years, whether or not they are a partner in a prestigious law firm.
6. 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:

1. I need this kind of car.
2. I want this sort of job.
3. I want this sort of house.
4. 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.

Let me start with some recent figures, from 2008: “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 much longer for many to find employment is that many areas of the United States have been devastated by the economy, and there are fewer jobs available in those areas. The troubled automotive industry has had a serious effect on the Michigan economy, for example. Regardless of the economic status of the area where you live and work, you may be in a position in which you should consider relocating to find a job. If you are under economic pressure, relocating and getting a job may be a crucial priority for you right now. Relocating isn’t always an easy decision to make. However, relocating for a job is perfectly normal and is something you generally should not hesitate to do. This is especially true if you’re living in an area of the country where your skills are no longer in demand. Notably, the history of the United States was built around people who relocated here because they felt there were better opportunities. For most of us, our careers and the time we spend at work take up most of our waking hours. Considering this, you need to be focused on finding an area of the United States or the world where people are seeking and hiring workers with your given skills. It is extremely important you live in an area where your skills are in demand. Life is in many ways like a game, and so is your career. If you were a fisherman, would you rather spend your career working in a small lake with a few fish or a large ocean with many fish? The more opportunities and the more competition there is for your skills in your market, the better off you will be. You need to put yourself where the action is if you want to survive. Several years ago I was working at a federal judicial clerkship job in Michigan. In three months, the clerkship would be over and I needed to find a job. Although I already had a job lined up with a New York City law firm, I wanted to get a job in California. I sent a targeted mailing of résumés out to legal employers in California. I meant to send my résumés only to major cities, like Los Angeles and San Diego, but also ended up targeting several small towns by mistake. I received several calls from law firms in small towns, and they all had similar questions: Why was I applying to a law firm in a small town? Who did I know in the small town? Was I also applying to law firms in larger cities? One of the potential employers from a small-town firm called me and asked those questions because he was worried that, if I did not have a connection to the small town, I would simply leave if I did not like the job. Employers want you to have a connection to the area if you are relocating, because they are concerned you will not have incentive to stick around. They get nervous if you are looking at employers in larger cities as well because they feel you are less interested in them. The questions about why I was relocating did not come up as much in larger cities. Employers in cities like New York are generally of the opinion anyone would want to relocate there because New York is New York. People in smaller markets are a little less confident. As a general job search strategy, I would recommend you stress that you have a real interest in the company and believe it’s a perfect place for you based on your personal interests, as well as your future career goals. Generally, employers like to hear you have close family in a given geographic area. If you do not, you may have a significant other or friends there, or perhaps you went to college or grew up there. The point is you want to assure employers you have some sort of personal connection to the area. Absent family or friends,  focus on the company and your sincere interest in it. As an aside, I want to bring up an important piece of career advice about applying for a position outside of where you currently live. The employer receiving your résumé is going to wonder why you are applying there and not in your own geographic area. You never want to send the message you are unemployable or cannot find a job where you currently live. Employers want to hire people who are “winners” and are employable in all markets. Therefore, you should never approach an employer by telling him or her that you cannot get a job where you live. Prospective employers should believe you are relocating because of reasons related to your personal long-term growth objectives–not because you have been defeated in trying to get a job in your existing market. In a down market, many people end up stuck with large mortgages and unsold homes. They feel saddled with this and cannot relocate. If you are in a market that is getting worse and worse by the day, you may have to relocate before you sell your home. This is not something that you should be talking about with your potential employer, however. An employer does not want to feel guilty you may be leaving an unsold home behind. Sharing this sort of information can also hurt you because the employer will suspect you have to return to your hometown to deal with the situation. Keep such personal matters to yourself in your job search. Never give them any possible reason to believe you are not their ideal candidate.