You Need to Sell, Sell, Sell

A strange misconception among many people, especially professionals, is that there is something wrong with selling. When I talk about selling, I am referring to any number of sales activities:

-Selling yourself in an interview

-Selling yourself in a cover letter to an employer

-Selling yourself to a client

-Selling yourself to any other person

-Packaging yourself in a ‘’sellable” way

In every single interaction we have with others we are selling. The more you sell, the better you will do in your life and career. The best and most successful people are always selling. You should have no preconceived notions about the value of selling because it is among the most important skills you can have. If you understand sales, you understand and control your life.

Several years ago, I was sitting in the office of my friend, who was a window washer. While he was on the phone, I picked up a magazine about window washing from his table. In it, I read an article which appeared to be part of a series. The series was about a man with a window washing squeegee and a towel who was transported to various American cities with no money and given the task of getting back each day. He might be transported from Chicago to Miami one month. The next month they might send him from Chicago to a small town in Oregon. He could be sent anywhere in the country. The article was titled something like this:

Give me a squeegee and a towel and send me to any American city with no money. By the end of the day, I will have a steak dinner in the most expensive restaurant in town, spend the night in a nice hotel, and take a flight home in the morning.

After being dropped off in a city in the morning, the window washer would go from business to business asking to wash their windows. Regardless of the city, he would always make enough money for his steak, hotel, and flight home. When I read this in the early 90s, flights often cost close to $1,000, so what this window washer was doing was really impressive. Without any knowledge of the city he was in and with no contacts, he would end the day with clients and plenty of money.

I remember this series exceptionally well because it inspired me to understand the power of sales and how it can completely change your life regardless of your other skills. When you know how to sell something you can do exceptionally well wherever you go.

I want you to take a moment and think about the power of the window washer’s story. What makes this story so remarkable to me is that being a window washer requires no education and no investment. All it requires is the ability to wash a window, which is teachable in a few minutes, and to find people who will pay you to do this. The ability to sell the service is obviously among the most important elements of this job.

What impressed me so much about this particular story is it shows if you have the ability to sell, you can make something from nothing. When you have the ability to sell you are in control of your life and what happens to you. Knowing how to sell something is a key to survival, advancement, fame, and fortune – if you are after these things.

I believe selling is the most important career skill you can have. All people are involved in sales, even if they do not realize it. However, there is some sort of bias against effective sales people. It is often considered ”uncouth” or not businesslike to be good at sales. People often feel if they try to sell something it will reflect badly on them. People feel sales is a low-class profession. When I hear people talk about sales like this it nearly makes me sick. Selling is the most important possible career skill imaginable, and the most important people in the world are absolute masters at sales.

Every time there is a presidential election in the United States, the winner is determined by the ability to sell to the public the idea he or she would make the better president. The winning candidate debates with his or her opponents, gives speeches, creates taglines and slogans, and travels all over the country trying to spread his or her ideas. When the candidate gets into office, he or she travels all over the world trying to sell those same ideas to other countries. The President tries to sell these ideas to the congress and the senate. The President tries to sell to constituents.

If you are the CEO of a corporationyour job involves sales. Think about auto industry CEOs traveling to Washington asking for money. Their ability to obtain money involves their ability to sell to politicians. They too are in sales.

The most important jobs involve sales, as do the least important. If you want time off from a job your ability to get that time off will depend on your ability to make a sale. If you want a raise, it may depend on your ability to sell your superiors on the reasons why you deserve a raise. Every single thing we do is about making a sale. Getting a good grade in school is often about making a sale. Everything we do is about making sales.

I used to know a guy who sat in his apartment all day not doing much of anything. He watched television and occasionally made a few phone calls. He smoked a lot of cigarettes and had about five or six beers each night. He was also single and probably always will be. He had had a pretty lousy career. He was at least 40 pounds overweight and, despite being in his mid 30s, he had not had a girlfriend since he was in high school. What was this guy’s problem? He did not think it was cool to sell himself. He would not sell himself to an employer, a potential mate, or anyone. He did not care. I have not spoken to the guy in a long time, but I remember he was always making fun of people who sold stuff, making fun of commercials on television and making fun of people trying their hardest to do well in life. This guy was someone who needed to learn how to sell.

Think about the people you know who are not selling themselves or putting their best foot forward. What would be different for them if they did? How would your life change as well?

Selling yourself is about more than simply telling others how good you are. It’s also about showing others the value you can bring them. Things like being fit, being enthusiastic, taking care of yourself emotionally, taking advantage of opportunities presented to you, are all related to sales. Because you are paid by the market you are a product, and because you are a commodity you need to sell yourself and do so exceptionally well every chance you get.

A huge mistake a lot of people in the job market make is forgetting they are a product. Yes, you are a product. Everyone is a product. We are products because in order to make money and add value to the world we have to get people to ”buy in” to whatever services or skills we are offering. Regardless of the job you have, people need to like you and/or what you are personally selling if you are going to reach your full potential.

Selling yourself will really help you stand out in your job or in your job search. This means packaging yourself in the right manner. This is all about how you look and how you come across. In the most competitive jobs, employers can afford to be incredibly picky. If you go into a high paying investment bank, for example, you will see most new recruits are fit, sharp, and enthusiastic. Most investment banks can hire anyone they want, and they hire the people who make the best impression. This is how it is in a competitive industry such as this. In fact, one of the first times I met a group of investment bankers I thought they were male models – these people are very good at packaging themselves. What I want to see you do is make the most of who you are. This means packaging yourself to the best of your ability, always being at your best, and selling yourself.

I want you to develop your sales skillsand not be afraid-ever-to sell anything. Whatever your goal in life may be, becoming an effective salesman will help you achieve it.

The Power of the Positive

What You Will Learn If you can believe in something it is quite possible that you can achieve it – think positive. You need to believe religiously in your abilities, your strengths, and the strength of the market. Do not listen to negative news about the market or surround yourself with negative people at the office. You need to be in a positive space – this is where you will find jobs, money, and happiness.

I believe that one of the most powerful things in the universe is the mind. Through our minds we can change the world. Skyscrapers, rocket ships, submarines–everything that exists has been conceived in the minds of men and women. If you think about this, you will quickly realize the power of thought and how profound it is to your life. If you can conceive of something it is quite possible that you can achieve it.

I would like to tell you a couple of stories about the power of the mind. Much of this is personal and related to human interaction, but when it comes right down to it I believe that it can apply directly to you and your job search. I also believe it may be some of the best career advice you ever receive.

Throughout my life I have been an observer in many respects more than a participant. I enjoy observing people and how they interact. I enjoy learning what types of people seem consistently happy and what distinguishes these people from those who are not happy. I have friends I have kept in contact with for 25 years or more, and some of these people are extraordinarily happy, while others are not. For our purposes today, I would like to focus on the happy ones. The happy people are those who have been consistently healthy, consistently employed, and have had lives that most of us would envy.I remember first speaking with one of my oldest and dearest friends over 20 years ago. I noticed the strangest thing every time I would speak with him. If I brought up a piece of negative news, or criticized something while talking to him, he would immediately end the conversation. If we were on the telephone he would say he had to go. If we were speaking in person he would walk away. This was how he acted; however, he was very polite about it. He did the same thing in large social situations. If we were in a group of people speaking and negative news came up, he would excuse himself and do something else.

Throughout the years I have seen many people like this. These are people who simply do not want any part in any negativity. They do not want to hear negative news about other people, and they are not at all interested in negative news of any kind. It does nothing for them, and they have no desire to participate.

There is something special about these sorts of people. I have known some of them to be smart and others not so smart. I have seen people like this who are driven and not driven. But one thing I know is this: These people are always well liked, wherever they go. They rarely lose jobs and they are almost always successful. The thing about these sorts of people is that they do not allow negative thoughts to enter their mind. They are, almost universally, only concerned with positive thoughts and spreading goodwill. As a consequence, people really like being around these people. Employers are no exception.

For some of high school I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and attended an international school where the students were from pretty much every country–Sweden, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, you name it. At the end of ninth grade, students had to decide whether they would enroll in something called the International Baccalaureate Program (IB), or stay in the school’s regular course of study. The IB program was much more difficult, and fewer than 10 percent of students enrolled in it.

One day I was speaking with one of the smartest girls in my history class, and I asked her if she was going to enroll in the program. She was from Sweden. “No, of course I am not,” she said. “That program is only for people who are going to get into good schools when they graduate.” I kept asking different people this question and, one after another, very intelligent people (people I believed were much more intelligent than I was) all told me that they simply were not intellectually equipped for those higher level classes. The significance of this was profound. In many European countries the students not enrolled in the IB program were basically setting themselves up for attending trade schools (rather than universities), and working in mediocre professions. Choosing this “regular” course of study did not have this serious of an impact in the United States, but it certainly did over there.

Many were staying away from the IB program, despite their intelligence, because somewhere along the line they had come to believe they were not intelligent enough to handle that course of study. They were, in effect, allowing their own negativity to make their decision for them.

It should also be noted that the converse was also true. Many students were selecting themselves for the IB course of study, who did not seem qualified. These students were allowing their positivity to influence them. These were the sorts of students who always believed they would find a way. And these were the same sorts of students who were not interested in negative conversations.

A couple of years later I was attending a private high school in Michigan and I had a teacher who I also picked as my advisor. This teacher was really exceptional, and most of the students he advised ended up going to very good colleges. I noticed that he too was always extremely positive. He spoke to the students closest to him in terms that only allowed success. For example, he would tell a student that he was confident he or she would get As in every course for the next semester, as if he already knew this would occur. The student might be only a B student, and would therefore look at the teacher incredulously. Nevertheless, the student would end up getting As the next semester.

Nothing has more power than telling someone “I see you doing this,” or “You are this kind of person, and you can do this.” There is a special kind of energy involved when this happens. You can literally change the course of people’s lives based on the sorts of expectations you set for them–whether those expectations are positive or negative. Do you ever have people around you who are setting low expectations for you? How do you perform when this occurs?

Our capacity to achieve starts within our minds, our conception of self. We have to think positively of ourselves in order to do well. We also cannot let negative thoughts enter our minds. This may be easier said than done, but I have known numerous people who are able to do this consistently. It works, and it is an incredibly powerful thing when it is done correctly.

All this brings me back to you and your job search. Regardless of whether the market is thriving or in a meltdown, you are employable. You are the type of person who always manages to find an opportunity. You are very good at your job and people can see this. You are perfect for every job you are applying for.

You need to keep thoughts like this going through your head at all times. These are the only thoughts you can afford when you are searching for a job. No other thought matters. If people around you are saying negative things about the market, do not listen to them. Walk away, or hang up, and avoid them. Negative information does you absolutely no good. Negative energy depresses. You need to be up.

The happiest people and the most successful people think positive thoughts. You need to believe religiously in your abilities, your strengths, and the strength of the market. Like attracts like. Positive attracts positive. I want you to succeed and be all you are capable of being. Do not listen to negative news about the market. Do not surround yourself with negative people at the office. You need to be in a positive space. This is where the jobs, money, and happiness are.

You deserve it all.

Fight for the Right to Work

What You Will Learn          Never give up at the first sign of difficulty. The harder you keep trying and the more effort you put in, the more things are likely to go your way. If there are people around you who are undermining your efforts and your potential, make sure that you fight back. When you have a job to do, you need to find every means within your power to complete it. You need to fight on.

In a bad job market, the most important thing you can do is to keep trying.  Never give up.  Life is a race and your career is also a race.  The problem with most people is that they are often willing to give up at the first sign of difficulty.  The harder you keep trying and the more effort you put in, the more things are likely to go your way.

From the time I was about 12, I had paper routes that required me to home deliver hundreds of papers all over my neighborhood by 7:00 am each morning.  It gets very difficult to do paper routes in the winter in Michigan, and it was not a fun job.  The worst part about the paper route was that I had a corrupt manager.  I think he was paid based on how many papers were being delivered on his route, so he kept increasing the number of papers I had to pay for, despite the fact that my customer base was not increasing.  I tried to keep up with this for some time but eventually it got to be too much.  He was raising the numbers of papers he sold me each week faster than I could cancel the newspapers.  Eventually I gave up.

This was a huge mistake.  There are people around you like my manager, who are trying to undermine what you are doing, often for their own personal gain.  You should always fight back against people seeking to undermine you–and hold them accountable.  Had I fought back, I am sure I would have made a lot more money back when I was delivering newspapers.

Each day I would be left with a huge pile of undelivered papers, for which I would still have to pay.  For years these papers accumulated in my mother’s garage.  Rats came and created elaborate nests out of them.  I knew this because when I would throw the undelivered papers into the garage each morning I could hear the sound of the rats scattering.  I became alarmed to set foot in there.  Even my dog refused to go in the garage.  She would yelp and scream if anyone tried to take her in there.  It was as if she was being given a death sentence and knew it.  

I have never heard of a hunting dog that is afraid of rats.  My mom had grown up with Brittany Spaniels and her dad had used them to retrieve various birds that he shot when he was not working in his hardware store.  Our dog loved to hunt, but was simply terrified of the rats that were nesting in our garage.  

I didn’t blame him.  I started making sure the doors to the garage were closed at all times because I did not want to get attacked by a rat either.  They were big rats and they must have been living off of the newsprint.  Each morning I would open the door a crack and throw the left over newspapers in there as rapidly as possible, and then run 10 feet or so to insure none of the rats had gotten out and were attacking.

I would finish my paper route and come home exhausted around 7:15 am each day.  I was so tired by this work that it was too much to also contend with the corrupt manager, who was charging me for too many newspapers.  I still look back on these days with a certain amount of awe because I worked so hard–and barely made any money.  I was simply in the business of purchasing newspapers and delivering them to hundreds of people for nearly free, at a ridiculous hour, and then supporting a huge colony of rats.

The thing about this job, however, was that I never gave up.  For 365 days every year for years and years I continued to deliver the papers.  I found every means within my power to get those papers delivered.  This is what you need to do with your job too.  You need to find every means within your power to get it done.

One of the most amazing things about paper routes is that I do not think I was ever sick, not once during the 4+ years during which I did this job.  In fact, I cannot think of another kid who was ever sick when they had a paper route either.  Perhaps this is because we were in better shape, but I also think it is because when you cannot afford to get sick, you simply do not.  We had to get those papers delivered and there was no one else out there who could do it if we didn’t do it.  Hundreds of people depended on me each day to get the news.  Some of the people were old or handicapped and never left the house.  Others read the paper before going to work in the morning.  The fact is that a lot of people relied upon me, and getting the paper to them was extremely important to me.

In my years in business I have seen countless employees abuse sick days.  I do not like this.  You are not really sick until you cannot deliver a paper.  I got those papers delivered though countless colds and other ailments.  You need to be strong, to get out of bed and get to work.  People are depending on you.  This is something I learned early on.  In my entire career of working for people I only missed work for one half day.  I was sent home from a law firm after throwing up in front of my secretary’s desk.  

The best employees never call in sick.  If they really are sick, they will be so laid up that I will bring them flowers.  People need to be tough because they are being relied upon.  Not getting sick sends a great message to your employer.

When I was 13, a 17-year-old neighbor of mine told me he would sell me his used motocross motorcycle to use for my paper route, for $250.  My neighbor had been adopted from a wilderness area in Northern Michigan and he had all sorts of interesting habits and toys that he had brought from the area he was from.  I never asked him much about where he was from, or what had happened to his family.  I alluded to this once and he turned very serious.  His blue eyes appeared to start glowing like a character in Star Trek.  I never said anything about it again.  I was afraid I might be killed.

I liked this guy a lot and he used to drive me to school.  He would generally brag about how he was going to be cheating on a test that day, or was going to take a look at some sort of illegal weapon after school.  He kept a gun in his glove box.  On one occasion he showed me how he had copied 50 pages worth of notes on to one page of a book in between the lines of text, so he could cheat on a test that day.  He bragged that it had taken him days to do this.  It was beautiful work and the words were the size of pinheads.  I wondered why he did not simply study for the test that was coming up.  This seemed to me as if it would have been much easier, and less time consuming.

He looked like the lead character out of Revenge of the Nerds, but he was into things far more macho than any typical nerd.  For example, he collected shotguns and hunting knives.  He also liked to go deer hunting; he had several pictures of him sitting on the corpses of dead deer that he had killed.  He just appeared one day in our neighborhood and proceeded to purchase all sorts of old cars and brought a touch of Grizzly Adams rural Northern Michigan with him to the suburbs.  Unfortunately, he died when he was around 18, while doing some sort of military exercise demonstration.  It involved twisting a shotgun to his head in a rapid fashion.  He had invited some students from his school, and had been showing them how adept he was with a gun.  The gun discharged and shot him in the head in front of his astonished peers.  People I knew never talked at all about this incident because, apparently, it was incredibly disturbing–beyond words.  

I heard through my mom years later that the guy had still been talking to the group and performing his exercises, for several seconds after he had shot part of his head completely off.  He had been oblivious to the fact that he was missing half of his head.  His body continued operating on autopilot for some time before he finally expired in front of the screaming group.

The motocross bike I had purchased from the guy was that it was not street legal, as it turned out.  In addition, I was living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, which was a very suburban area, probably at least 60 miles away from the nearest dirt bike trail.  Also, the dirt bike had no muffler and no kick stand.  After a ride, I had to lean it against a garage or just put it on the ground.  In addition, the bike was quite tall and I could barely fit on it. Finally, since it was built for motocross, it had no lights on it.  It was clearly not built for riding on roads.

It was, however, built for riding on people’s front lawns, through topiaries and more.  It also fit a bag of newspapers on its long seat quite conveniently.  Incredibly, I was suddenly able to do my paper route in less than 45 minutes with this new tool.  Around 20 minutes of the expedition consisted of me balancing the bike against a tree while I loaded up my newspapers.  I literally rode this awesome machine right across front lawns, barely ever riding on the street.  Since I was operating at 5:00 am people were sleeping and I never got any complaints.  The bike was loud, but I darted so quickly in and out of doorsteps that I am sure I was long gone by the time any one ever woke up.  People would get woken up due to the motocross sound, and probably saw tracks across their lawn the size of small car tires; but I am sure they never imagined these were caused by the 13-year old kid with the paper route bike.  I knew that I would be in serious trouble if I were ever caught by the police on this incredible motorcycle.

This was how I did things.  I had to deliver the papers.  I knew I had a job to do and I took every action within my power to get it done.  

Word soon spread to the kids in my neighborhood that I had this amazing toy.  In fact, word spread for miles around, and lots of kids started coming over just to see the bike.  In some cases these kids would ride their bikes from five miles away or more.  When I had purchased the bike I knew I would be in serious trouble if I were ever caught riding the bike during the day.  One time I was sitting around the house with a good friend of mine and we realized that a store we wanted to get to would be closing in the next 10 minutes.  It would take us at least 25 minutes to get there on our regular bikes.  Somehow my friend convinced me to fire up the dirt bike.  My idea was that if I were to ride the dirt bike fast enough on the streets, no one would see us.  I still to this day do not understand what I was thinking.

I fired up the dirt bike and drove like hell.  I was riding on side streets and had no idea how fast I was going because the bike had no speedometer.  I knew the speed limit was 25, however, and when I heard the sirens behind me I was very scared.  We had been going along, having the time of our lives, and had made it at least 2 or 3 miles.  When I pulled over, the policemen that approached the motorcycle looked speechless.  Here were two young kids in the suburbs, who had just been pulled over riding a motocross motorcycle.

“You were going 71 miles an hour in a 25 zone,” the officer said dryly as I finally managed to get down off the motorcycle and lay it down in the middle of the street.  “Do you have a license?”

I explained I had no license, no registration, no identification, and no insurance.  Plus, I was only 13, so the officer did not seem to have any idea what to do.  The first person he dealt with was my friend.   I had been wearing a helmet.  He radioed the station and they called my friend’s parents, who rushed over to pick him up.  The officer gave him a ticket for not wearing a helmet.  My friend’s father was a very important and respected man in the city.  I think he was the mayor of one of the Grosse Pointes.  This was despite his having a huge collection of pornography (and sex toys) hidden in his bedroom closet, about which every thirteen-year-old kid in the entire city knew–and sometimes watched while he was at work.  After this episode, many children would be banned from associating with me, as this smut king mayor spread word that I had been caught on my nuclear powered paper route bike with his son going 70 miles an hour in a 25 miles-per-hour zone.  I gave a false telephone number for my mother, so the police could not reach her.  My parents were divorced and I was living with my mother at the time.

“He’s ok.  I know who he is,” my friend’s father, the porno mayor, told the many policemen who had gathered.  “Do not take him to Wayne County Juvenile Detention.  He’ll be dead in an hour if he’s taken there.  Just release him. ”

I got a ticket for driving a vehicle without a registration, going 71 in a 25-zone, reckless driving, driving without a license, driving a vehicle without lights or signals, and other infractions I do not recall to this day.  There were so many tickets I could not fit them all in my pocket.  I was told to give them to my mother.  They sent a tow truck to pick up my motorcycle and I walked home.

The worst part about this was that I was going to have to do my paper route without the motorcycle in the morning.

I have no idea how I did it but within two days I got my motorcycle back.  I think I got the guy I had purchased it from to pick it up and give it back to me.

You can always find a way to get your work done.  You need to do everything within your power to get your job done.

He made me promise to never ride it during the day again.  The most serious problem came a few days later, when I opened a very official letter addressed to my mother.  I then realized I had a court date that I was expected to attend in a few days, with my parents.  I realized that if my mother found out about all of this I would be screwed.  I did the only thing I could possibly think of.

I called the judge.

I needed a good story and to this day I am still not sure how I came up with the story I did.  I explained to the judge that my father had just died a tragic death, when he was attacked and killed by a group of rabid bats during a caving expedition in South America just some days back (I do not think my father has ever been in a cave, and he is alive and well to this day) and that my mother was really shook up by this.  I explained that the shock of the bat attack combined with this would really send my mother over the edge.

“Is she drinking a lot?” the judge asked.

“Yes.  She’s very upset,” I lied.

“I would be too if I were her.  Damn!  A crazy bat attack.  I bet they have really sharp little teeth.”

“The sharpest!” I cried.

I am not sure how I delivered this monologue, but I do remember crying.

“He never knew you cannot disturb bats while they are sleeping during the day.  Thousands of bats just descended on to him from everywhere!”

“I know…I know…” the judge said.

After what must have been an unprecedented 20-minute discussion, the judge told me that he was not sure that he could do anything and that I would need to bring my mother to court the following week.  He promised me he would check to see what he could do, however.

A few days later, another letter arrived from the courthouse.  I intercepted this one, just like I intercepted the previous one.  I remember it started with something like, “I spoke with your son and am so sorry about your husband’s death at the hands of so many rabid bats…”  The letter then detailed the charges and the judge said that he would be dismissing the charges, and that we did not need to show up for court.  The judge admonished my mother to watch me, despite her time of unprecedented grieving, and urged her to not drink so much.  I could not believe it.

My friend went to court for not wearing a helmet and ended up being fined a lot of money.  His father even hired a lawyer to represent him.  Since he was a local mayor, the small hearing had been a little spectacle in the area.  I went to the hearing and my friends’ parents were there together with the lawyer.  I was called on to testify in front of the judge about the event surrounding my friend not wearing a helmet.  My friend broke down and cried in front of the judge.  He was wearing a suit and tie.  I was testifying in sneakers, shorts and a tee shirt.  My friend ended up getting grounded for quite some time and I continued to ride my motorcycle.

The motorcycle was not without its problems.  For example, the chain frequently came off, which was very annoying.  But it did the job.  Eventually I got some sense and put a classified ad in the paper and sold the dirt bike, so I could purchase a real motorcycle with the proceeds.  That bike was much better because it had a license on it and everything.  Despite being years away from being old enough to have a license, I rode that motorcycle everywhere.  I even took it across the American border on a bridge to Canada, and spent hours riding it throughout Canada.  I’m probably the only 14-year old who ever did anything as crazy as this.

What I learned from my motocross episode is that you need to figure out how to get your work done.  You need to use every means within your power.  When you grow up street smart, you learn that you cannot always count on things to go they way you want them to.  You need to fight on.  Fight for the right to work.

Become Entrepreneurial

What You Will Learn Do not be a mere commodity – figure out how to go around what others are doing. You need the ability to look at existing situations and to create efficiency and unique value. The key to having success in your career is to work for companies that are constantly innovating. Learn to become entrepreneurial and run your career in terms of constantly creating new, faster and more efficient value.

The greatest challenge you have in your career and in your life is to avoid becoming a mere commodity. When you are a commodity you are no different from the next guy. People can copy you and schools can stamp out tons of people just like you. Employers can also create people like you through training programs and more. In the job market, employers are going to be in a constant battle to either (1) eliminate you, or (2) have you do more work for less money, or (3) get the work done more cheaply elsewhere.

This is what business is about and it is how the world works. Your must work hard and set yourself apart, in order to fall outside of this process. To do this you need to become entrepreneurial. If you are entrepreneurial none of this will ever affect you. In fact, you will profit and continually do well. You need to be on the side of value creation, attacking the way things are done, and finding new shortcuts and innovations. If you can do this in your work, you will do well anywhere you are employed.

I have been reading a lot of very revealing and interesting articles lately about various jobs in the service sector that are disappearing:

• Yesterday I read an article about a guy who, until recently, worked as a statistician making $110,000 a year. His employer decided to hire someone in India to do his job. The employer’s savings? Probably over $100,000 a year.
• The previous day I read an article about a very prestigious law firm in London, which had hired attorneys in India do most of the work on a major case. The savings? Probably millions of dollars.
• The day before that I read an article about a recruiting firm in the technology industry that got rid of all of its recruiters in the United States and replaced them with recruiters working out of India.
• A week or so before that I saw a rerun of a 60 Minutes special about Americans who are going to places like Thailand to have surgery because the procedures are cheaper there. Plastic surgery, heart surgery–you name it, you can get it all done overseas, in some cases at one-tenth the price.

Indeed, there are very few products and services that cannot eventually be provided at a lower cost by competitors.

• Cars can be made in Japan, Brazil and Mexico, for example, more cheaply than they can be made in the United States.
• Computer programming can be done more cheaply in places like India than in the United States.
• Telephone sales and customer service can be provided more cheaply in places like the Philippines and Jamaica than in the United States.
• Clothing, furniture, plastic toys and so forth can be made more cheaply in China than in the United States.

Transportation costs are continually going down. The speed and ease of communication between various places is continually increasing. All of this serves to continually make various products and services mere commodities, making it increasingly difficult for certain companies and industries to remain competitive. As companies become less competitive they have to lower prices to keep people buying things. This puts downward pressure on wages and serves to eliminate jobs.

All businesses, jobs and so forth are continually under pressure from outside forces that are seeking to improve how things are done and to lower costs. This is a “trap” of sorts, and people who get into this trap have a difficult time making and holding on to their businesses, jobs and so forth over time. You may be working for a company right now that is going through this pressure. You may be a person who is jumping around from job to job as one company after another lays you off in response to this pressure. This pressure from outside forces is real and it affects most jobs. The decision you need to make is whether you want to be someone affected by this pressure, which is making your job and work a commodity–or whether you want to be the person who steps up and creates value by changing the way things are done.

Indian programmers change the way things are done, creating value in the process.

Chinese furniture manufacturers change the way things are done, creating value in the process.

Japanese car manufacturers change the way things are done, creating value in the process.

Which side are you on? In most cases, you will not experience great success in your life, or career, unless you are on the side of changing the way things are done–for the better. The people who change the way things are done are the ones who create value because they create products and services that are higher quality, cheaper and faster. Your entire mindset should be directed towards creating products and services that are higher quality, cheaper and faster.

One of the stories I keep reading about over and over again is about layoffs in the legal sector. It just seems to be getting worse and worse, and the bad news just keeps coming. There are many classes of jobs that are experiencing these changes. Manufacturing is experiencing this; finance is experiencing this. When you start seeing incredible numbers of layoffs and so forth in any industry or employment sector, it is generally a clear sign that the work being done in that sector is losing value, and many of the employees in that sector are becoming commodities. Anytime there are scores of people willing to do something, who are qualified to do it, an industry and your job is in danger of becoming a commodity. Make no mistake about it; regardless of what you do, there are always going to be scores of people doing everything they can to make your job a mere commodity, and to make you expendable. It is human nature.

With advances in global communications, there are few jobs out there that are not at risk of being done more cheaply elsewhere. Businesses exist primarily to make money, and business people will always run their businesses in whatever manner makes them the most money. It could be outsourcing the production of rugs to China, moving a sock factory to the Philippines, or something similar. This pressure exists everywhere. If you are going to protect your career, you need to be the person who is initiating, leading and creating value.

This weekend I met with an entrepreneur who, in the 1970s, started a business helping hospitals organize their medical records. He was the first person to start this sort of business in the United States, and he experienced a phenomenal rise to rapid success. At the time, hospitals were spending incredible amounts of money and time trying to organize medical records and respond to requests for medical records from insurance companies, attorneys and others. This entrepreneur figured out a way to respond to these requests using fewer people, and in less time.

• Instead of having to rely on an entire department of people to respond to the requests for medical records, he would work with only two people, and he would be responsible for hiring and managing them.
• Instead of taking an average of 10 days to respond to a request for medical records, he was able to have his own people respond to the requests within three days.
• Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year responding to requests for medical records, the hospitals now only needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year.

The man had discovered a method of organizing medical records and responding to requests that was so fast and effective that hospitals, when presented with the prospect of using the service, felt as if they did not have any choice but to use it. The service was that good and effective because it saved them so much money–and it took off like crazy.

Leaner, faster and cheaper.

Making things leaner, faster and cheaper is basically the hallmark of what any business needs to do to emerge from obscurity and become an overnight sensation. When new businesses start that do this, they typically experience rapid and profound growth in any industry. When people apply this methodology to their jobs, they also tend to experience incredible results.

Within a few years the man’s company had signed up probably 70% of the hospitals in the twenty or so largest cities in the United States. Competitors also started emerging, and one large competitor started signing up hospitals with which the man had not yet reached agreements. The two were racing across the country in an attempt to sign up hospitals as quickly as possible. Within a few years, the man ended up selling the company, pocketing millions of dollars in the process.

Today there are thousands of these companies. Having so much competition has pushed down the price of the medical records retrieval service, so that it is now a mere commodity. Hospitals can play different medical companies off one another to lower the price and keep it as low as possible. People entering the business now face numerous barriers to entry and it is very difficult for them to get started.

Inside the medical records companies, given the fact that the service is now a commodity, there is also downward pressure on wages. Because the companies can only charge so much to hospitals, they can only make profits if they cut corners on the service, or pay their employees less. In addition, because the records are now being scanned, a lot of the work is even being done in India, which is lowering the cost of doing the work even more, eliminating more jobs and so forth. Companies that are doing this have spawned an entirely new industry that is eliminating thousands of jobs in the United States. New companies are starting up with most of their staff elsewhere, and they are becoming successful. Other companies are copying these companies. Over time, yet more innovation that we cannot even predict will likely come to this business.

This is what happens within a business that has become like a commodity. Once a business becomes like a commodity, it becomes more difficult for the people working inside the business, and for newcomers as well. This process continues to occur until a new kind of business emerges that makes the process leaner, faster and cheaper again. Then this business grows for some time and then eventually becomes a commodity as well.

After World War II, the United States was extremely isolated from the rest of the world. Factories in Europe and Japan, for example, had largely been destroyed in the war. American manufacturers churned out goods and faced very little competition. This lack of competition made it very easy for them to sell cars and have large profits. In addition, the quality of their work was not compared very much to others because there was little competition.

In the 1970s foreign factories started exporting an increasing number of cars into the United States, which were of better quality, cheaper, had higher resale values and more. Due to this competition, cars became more like commodities. American companies did not respond fast enough and, ultimately, the entire American auto industry began to experience serious problems, which has lasted for decades. Bankruptcies, mass-layoffs, factory shutdowns and more all continue to occur. When you see any industry or business going through this sort of turmoil, it is a surefire sign that the goods or services they are providing have become mere commodities.

Jean-Baptiste Say, a 19th Century economist, defined an entrepreneur as a person who takes what is out there from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. What successful entrepreneurs do is bypass what everyone else is doing in the market and create products, services and so forth that are unique, which people want to purchase.

• In the case of the medical records company, the man created a company that was unique, which motivated hospitals and others to purchase it.
• In the case of the automobile companies, foreign competitors created cars that had more value and were much better than the domestic competition.

This sort of process is occurring all the time, and it is highly relevant to both your career and your life. As products and services become commodities, the job security, income and prospects of the people who are providing the work decrease. In order to escape this process and thrive in your career, you need to learn to think, act and perform like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have figured out how to avoid this system and be part of a system where none of this matters. They are the ones leading the charge to China, India, or wherever it is possible for their businesses to thrive. They are the ones marketing the more efficient and better-made cars in the United States.

In order to bypass all of this nonsense, you need to figure out how to go around what others are doing and create value, while others are just participating as commodities. You need the ability to look at existing situations and ways of doing things, and to create efficiency and unique value. Even when others are spending their time copying others, you should be in a place where you can go around all of this and thrive. You need to be on the side of innovation, not on the side of being a commodity.

You can do this even inside of companies that are being killed by outside competition. You can show management, or lead management in ways to create new value. People have opportunities to create new value all the time. Many companies, however, are not interested in creating new value and are stuck doing things a certain way. If this is the case, my advice to you is to leave and find a company that is on the side of innovation and value creation. These are the companies and places that are fun to work in, and these are the places where you stand to have the best long-term career.

The place to be is on the side of the business that is “smashing” the way things are already being done– instead of trying to protect what is there. This is where the opportunities lie. These are entrepreneurial-minded businesses that have futures, because they are not afraid to attack the way established companies are operating.

The key to having success in your career is to work for companies that are constantly innovating, and that always concentrate on creating value with their product or service. If you learn to become entrepreneurial and run your career in terms of constantly creating new, faster and more efficient value, you will always find yourself happily employed, enthusiastic about the future, and doing well in any economic climate.

The Importance of Finding and Creating Demand

What You Will Learn Everyone and every skill is in demand somewhere – the better you do at searching where you are in demand, the more success you are going to have in your job search. Searching for the demand may require a geographic change, or simply require you to conduct your search for a job in a different way. The ability to create demand for something not ordinarily in demand is among the most valuable skills. If you can create demand, you can open the door to limitless possibilities.

In the year 2000 I needed computer programmers in our company more than anything. At the time, however, it was exceedingly difficult to find a good computer programmer. I went through a lot of tough times trying to hire and keep computer programmers. Computer programmers seemed to have their pick of jobs and they would switch employers every few months, as they were offered better and better jobs, more stock options and other employee perks. One day I hired a programmer and he immediately started working on an important project that I had. He worked for a few hours and then asked me to order him a pizza. He ate the pizza, and afterwards he worked for about 20 minutes and then came into my office.

“This project is not that interesting,” he said. “I think I am going to just go back to my old job.”

As hard as this may be to believe now, a decent programmer could easily go back to a job he or she had quit back then. The reason was that there was just a huge demand for programmers. Programmers could easily move between jobs, go back to an old job they quit, or find a new job–all in a matter of a few hours. The job market for programmers in California at the time was absolutely nuts. Programmers would show up to interviews with an arrogance, and without a care in the world because they knew that they were in control and that the hiring companies really needed them; if they could do the job they hardly even needed a résumé.

By the year 2001, the market had turned and programmers were barely in demand at all. There were almost no programming jobs available anywhere. It seemed as if, just as quickly as the demand for programmers had arrived, it was gone. Programming résumés started getting much more polished, and prospective employees were humbled. Suddenly programmers started showing up to interviews in suits and ties, talking about what sort of value they could offer. As the 2001 recession grew on, I started getting cold calls from small programming outfits trying to tell me they could offer this or that service to help our business. Programmers came into interviews with suggestions and ideas about what they could do to help the company.

In the job market and in life, if we are not in demand we need to either (1) find the demand, or (2) create the demand for whatever it is that we offer. This is the nature of looking for a job and planning to succeed at everything we do. In order to have the job you want, or the life you want, you need to either find the demand or create a demand for what you are doing or selling.

Find the Demand. When I was in college I had a professor who was grossly overweight. She taught an anthropology course about Africa. She had spent most of her career traveling back and forth to Africa while writing and teaching about it at the University of Chicago. In the rural area of Africa where she had worked and lived, the characteristic that was considered more attractive above all others was to be overweight. Women drank cream and sweetened milk all day in order to be and look as obese as possible. Carrying extra weight was a sign of wealth and the ability to endure famines that stalked the areas; therefore, someone who could be obese while others were starving was considered to be very, very attractive. The woman told our class that she was considered incredibly beautiful in the part of Africa where she worked.

“If I spent all my time in the United States I would probably do everything I could to be thin,” she told our class.

When I heard this and later read various anthropology articles about this subject, I found it increasingly fascinating. Here this woman was in demand and was even sought out at least partially due to her attractiveness in one part of the world due to being obese, whereas she did not nearly receive this sort of attention in the United States. This is how it is with many of our careers. We have goods or services that are in demand. We are just not finding the right place where the demand is highest.

In 2000 a computer programmer in the middle of a rural state where no technology companies were based would not have been in demand. If he decided to market himself in Palo Alto, California, however, he would have instantly been in demand. My 350 pound professor certainly could not have walked on the fashion runway in New York City, but her weight made her the equivalent of a supermodel in the part of Africa where she was able to find a constant stream of interesting work.

Most people in the job market do not understand how to find the demand, and as a consequence they do not succeed and reach the level they are capable of attaining. I am going to use a crude analogy but it is a worthwhile one. If you get on an airline flight coming into Las Vegas on Friday afternoon or early evening from small and large towns across the United States you are very certain to see numerous very attractive women sitting alone. Since I live in downtown Las Vegas and have heard this from numerous people, I can tell you what a good number of these women do: They are strippers and are involved in other sexually-related entertainment pursuits. They work in Las Vegas on the weekend when it is busiest and go home on Sunday. From what I have heard, each weekend thousands of these women come to Las Vegas to work in adult entertainment. Strippers can make thousands of dollars per night in Las Vegas, while their earnings back in rural America would simply pale in comparison. What these women are doing is finding the demand that exists in the market for what they do. They come to Las Vegas in order to find the demand–the highest demand for their services.

This is no different from people with blue collar skills going to Alaska to work in a fishery and make tens of thousands of dollars in a summer. And this is also no different from a professional basketball player coming to the United States from China because he is more in demand here in the United States. Whatever your profession, the most important thing you can do is find the demand. Finding the demand may require a geographic change, or it may simply require you to conduct your search for a job, mate, or whatever, in a different way.

Yesterday I was talking with an attorney who works in New York City and has been out of law school for 15 years, who makes $110,000 a year working in a law firm. This attorney should be making much more than this. With his background and pedigree I know that if he knew how to look for a job he could find a position that would pay double his current salary. I asked him what he was doing to look for a job and he told me he was looking on a public job site and nothing more. Because I am in this business, I happen to know that this guy has many excellent skills that are highly in demand in the marketplace.

This guy needs to package himself correctly, and instead of applying to one job every few months, he needs to apply for as many opportunities as he can find in New York City. He even needs to get his résumé out to places that have not advertised that they are hiring. In short, this attorney needs to find the demand in the market for what he offers in terms of his legal skills. This is an exercise I have been through with countless attorneys and job seekers before; it is all about finding the demand.

If you are looking for a job, or looking for a better job, or looking for a mate, or looking for a friend, or trying to get anything, you need to find the demand. Nothing is more important than finding the demand. Everyone and every skill is in demand somewhere and the better you do at finding where you are in demand the more success you are going to have in your job search. If you can find the demand you will do well.

In Aspen, Colorado there are a ton of fancy stores selling things like $700 men’s shirts. The first time I looked for an article of clothing in Aspen I nearly dropped over. Every clothing store there is remarkably expensive. I have never seen such an expensive city when it comes down to simply looking for a shirt. There are a lot of rich people in Aspen. Obviously, these kinds of high-end stores would not go over as well in a place like Downtown Detroit, for instance. There simply would not be the demand. The stores that come into Aspen to sell things like $700 shirts have done nothing more than find the demand for their brand of product. The game is all about finding demand. Businesses understand this and you should too.

Mormons, Jews, Muslims, African Americans and others all have their own dating sites. It is like this with everything: We go to and tend to congregate wherever we are most in demand. This is a very powerful marketing secret and something that will empower you to get what you want.

In the Absence of Demand, You Need to Create Demand. When the market for computer programmers seemed to vanish overnight in 2001, there was simply no more demand. When the economy gets bad all sorts of professionals, such as lawyers and others may see demand seemingly dry up overnight, while employers start laying people off and stop hiring. The demand for what you do may just go away. In such a situation you will need to find a way to create demand for your skill. The ability to create demand for something not ordinarily in demand is among the most important skills there are. People with the ability to create demand for themselves, or for a product or service, are typically the highest paid and most successful in any economy.

A few days ago I was walking with my daughter down the strip in Las Vegas when a man came at me trying to hand me a flyer. He was standing in front of Circus Circus and thrusting flyers in the face of everyone who walked past him. It must have been 115 degrees outside, and I am sure this was a very tough job to work at. Since I had been bombarded with various flyers by several other people in the preceding moments (which, by the way, happens constantly throughout each day)–I simply walked by the man without taking the flyer. A few seconds later he started screaming at me:

“Hey Jack Ass with the stroller! What’s wrong with a discount on a Grand Canyon tour in exchange for taking a tour of a timeshare?” I stopped, completely astonished. My wife started yelling at the man and a small altercation broke out. My wife called him an “ass” or something to this effect. I did not get involved because I was so shocked, and since my daughter was with me.

A few moments later the man broke into an argument with another woman. He called her a “stupid bitch” when she did not take one of his flyers, and she started fighting with him. I could not believe this guy. He was literally starting fights with everyone who passed by and was not taking his flyer. He seemed to be a really angry guy. He was angry because he did not have the ability to get people interested in taking his fliers. Plainly put, he could not create demand. He was in the wrong racket. The thing is, there are people like this guy who really do have the ability to create demand, and who can interest people in taking their flyers. This guy was just not one of them…

When my wife and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon several years ago, no less than 20 people tried to sell us timeshares. One time we were walking down the street and saw an advertisement for a $200 flight in a helicopter over a volcano, and when we stopped and expressed an interest we were told that we could go on this excursion (regularly priced at $600 per person!) if we would agree to spend three hours taking a tour of a timeshare property.

We elected not to do the timeshare tour, but there were so many people trying to sell us timeshares on the trip that I started joking with my wife that it would be really funny to scream in public: “Hey, does anyone know where we can buy a timeshare!” The image that I have of Hawaii and most vacation destinations is that screaming this in public would result in a hoard of sales people coming towards me, attempting to immediately sell me a timeshare.

Whether you are in Hawaii, Florida, Las Vegas, San Diego, or even Disneyland, there are likely to be scores of people attempting to sell you timeshares. These people are all over. Unsuspecting families and couples find themselves walking down the street and they suddenly encounter someone offering them a free gift of some sort in exchange for a many hours long, high pressure, guilt inducing tour of a timeshare. I have never been on one of these timeshare tours; however, I hear that they are unlike anything else. Even the most stoic and resistant of people often end up buying a timeshare after the tour. The timeshare tours are expertly programmed and orchestrated to lead to “buying behavior” amongst the people who go on the tours.

The thing about timeshare tours and timeshare sales is that no one goes on vacation with the idea of purchasing a timeshare. In fact, this is not something that people generally ever seek out. In most instances, a timeshare is a horrible investment or purchase that makes very little economic sense. For example, a typical time share may cost $50,000 for the right to use a property for one week per year. Then you will receive a bill for $2,000 each year for taxes, maintenance and so forth. Once a timeshare is sold out, the facilities are typically not upgraded very often. Most timeshares are run by hotels and the timeshares are on the worst part of the property. The craziest thing about timeshares is that a one week stay in the same size room in the hotel is actually usually cheaper than the “taxes, maintenance and so forth” charges for the timeshare property. In addition, the average traveling person who stays at the hotel for a week does not have to pay $50,000, stay in the hotel the same week every year, stay on a less desirable part of the property and deal with older furnishings, which the timeshare owner frequently is left to deal with.

Nevertheless, these aggressive sales people in vacation destinations all throughout the world sell countless timeshares each year–despite the fact that purchasing one makes very little sense. The reason the timeshares are sold is because the people selling them are able to create a demand in the marketplace.

This is among one of the most important lessons you will ever learn and it highly relevant to your career and life: The ability to create a demand where demand does not naturally exist is one of the strongest skills you can possess. Creating a demand for your products or services where it does not naturally exist is an extremely valuable skill. People who are consistently employed, businesses that are consistently successful, people who are consistently successful in everything they do all have the ability to constantly create a demand, even when one does not naturally exist.

I would submit to you that in the case of timeshares there is no such thing as a natural demand. The demand is entirely fabricated by expert executive strategists and sales teams.

If you go to any state fair in the United States, or these days even to a Costco, or Sam’s Club, you will generally see someone with a table set up and a small audience gathered around, who is demonstrating some sort of product or service. It may be a nonstick frying pan or a juice maker or a certain type of food. The people giving the demonstrations will typically have an audience around them of maybe several people–who all look mesmerized by the demonstration they are witnessing. At the end of each demonstration, if the person is talented enough they will generally end up sell one or two of these things.

If whatever was being demonstrated was just sitting on a shelf, the odds are slim to none that anyone would purchase it. The demonstration of the product or service is what ends up selling it. The people inside the store are creating a demand for what they are offering. The ability to stimulate demand for something people may not even really need is a very advantageous skill. It is one of the most important skills in marketing, and having the ability to do this can make or break your career in your chosen profession as well.

One of the biggest trends I have noticed recently is Israelis working at the malls across the United States. I do not care whether you are in Ohio, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, malls are crowded with Israelis selling all sorts of things. It could be little electronic cars, face lotions, or other sorts of things. Almost everything these Israelis sell in their mall carts is, in my opinion, junk. Here is a video I took earlier this year of some Israelis in the mall: Israeli Cart Videos in the Mall.

A December 3, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal relates:

At malls across the country, shoppers are being besieged by a determined crop of salespeople: young Israelis who man mobile carts and have a no-holds-barred selling style.

Amid the grimmest holiday season in years, these workers are approaching passing mall shoppers or calling out from their stations, pitching body lotions, irons, toys and knickknacks. They demonstrate their wares by flying remote-control helicopters, steaming shirts and applying makeup. Instead of charging American-style fixed prices, they harness the culture of the bazaar and often quote numbers based on what they think a customer will be willing to pay.

It’s a far cry from the selling style of many of their fellow cart vendors who tend to be more passive and let customers come to them.

‘We’re Hunting!’

“We’re not selling here — we’re hunting!” said Ms. Guembes’s Israeli vendor, who gave his name only as Yaniv. Working 12-to 14-hour shifts for commissions of 20% to 30%, the Israelis can take home $500 a day during the holidays.

What these Israelis are doing is creating demand where one would normally not exist. Their unique approach is to set themselves up in a mall and start selling products that people would normally not have much interest in. This skill is so rare here in the U.S. that the people who are best at it are usually not American-born: Americans are not typically taught to be this pushy, nor do most Americans have this ability. According to the same Wall Street Journal article:

Wholesalers say cart operators have tried hiring Americans to staff carts, but they lacked the art of the hustle — too polite to move the merchandise, especially for 12 hours straight.

“Israelis are natural-born closers” on the sales floor, says Steven Malkin, marketing director for Vancouver-based Relaxus Products Ltd., which supplies slippers, toy airplanes and other items to cart operators.

Probably the greatest skill anyone can have out there is the ability to sell a product, or a concept, to people. In order to sell a product or a concept you need to interest people in the product or concept and create a demand. If there is not a demand for the product it will not sell.

Going about looking for a job is no different than selling a product of some sort. There are many cardinal errors that people often make when looking for a job, which are really no different than the errors that marketers make–and the greatest one is failing to create demand.

My greatest skill is, I believe, is being a legal recruiter. Many people go into this business with the idea that it is just about getting an attorney’s résumé and forwarding it to a law firm or other hiring organizations and getting paid. However, to me, the skills involved in being a legal recruiter are actually far more involved than just doing these things. My success as a legal recruiter has largely involved my ability to create demand for a candidate where one might not otherwise exist.

For example, if an average recruiter has an attorney candidate who speaks Russian the recruiter will probably gloss over this unique fact, and will simply send the candidate along to whichever law firm(s). An exceptional recruiter, on the other hand, will look at this candidate and will package an otherwise ordinary candidate to the law firm(s) as an “exceptional opportunity” for the law firm to gain Russian clients. The recruiter may talk about the candidate’s ties (deep or not so deep) in the American Russian community and may even send the law firm numerous articles about American law firms going over to Russia and experiencing great success. The recruiter may even provide other articles about the growing need for American law firms to provide attorneys with knowledge of Russian matters. Instead of packaging the attorney as just another attorney, the attorney gets packaged as an opportunity. A good recruiter knows how to create opportunity for his candidate.

In the job market and in your life you either need to find the demand that already exists in the market, or create the demand. Having the ability to create a demand where one might not ordinarily exist is an exceptionally valuable skill. If you can create demand, you can open the door to limitless possibilities.

Believe in the Possibilities

What You Will Learn Most people in the job market need something else even more than they need a job – they need to get their zest back. People lose zest for their careers and for life due to various reasons. The greatest gift one can receive is inspiration. Inspiration is what changes everything and it is what will change your life – even more so than a new job.

Most people in the job market need something else even more than they need a job. The same is generally true for people that are unhappy with their career paths. Contrary to what many of these people may believe, what they need in order to cure their misery is actually something far, far different from a mere job change.

Last night I was walking through the Forum Shops Mall in Caesars Palace and I could not help but notice something that is probably the same in malls all across America. There are young men around 15-18 who seem to beam with incredible enthusiasm in the malls. They just hang out in groups, smiling and looking quite happy. They hold their heads high and their posture is very good. They joke with each other and appear very confident in their behavior. This is a stereotypical group of young men, the likes of which I have been seeing in malls for quite some time.

There is something else you see in the malls too: You see men who have gotten on in years. By the time those young men are in their mid-20s, a lot of that energy and enthusiasm has disappeared from their faces completely. Instead, they look more serious. They no longer walk with the same posture, or same confidence. They do not appear to be as happy anymore, and you can just see from their faces that life is no longer as fun for them. When the same man gets to be in his 30s, his enthusiasm has probably drained even more. He may have begun to grow a pot belly. Some men wear golf shirts that are reminiscent of the few moments of fun that they may expose themselves to once in a while. By the time most men are in their 50s any trace of that beaming–that happy self expression and playfulness in their faces is almost gone completely. They appear to shuffle when they walk and they are missing that posture that is erect and meets the world with incredible enthusiasm. You see these men everywhere. The life force within them seems to be fading.

This is not true for all men, of course. Nor is it true for all women. But still, many people do lose zest for their careers and for life; it just disappears over the years as people work and experience various family, career and life changes–and challenges. Once it is gone, even if, say a person finds a new and better job, this zest will still be missing. Most men and women, once they start losing this zest in their late teens and early 20s, begin losing it more and more each year…it simply never comes back. This is a very predictable phenomenon that I have seen time and time again. The energy that once characterized a person simply vanishes.

Young men who are 15-18 will tell you of the incredible things they are going to do when they get older. They have all the confidence in the world and believe that whatever they want to do is possible. I remember once driving to Chicago O’Hare airport with a friend of mine when I was around 19 years old and in my first year of college. We were going to pick up my friend’s buddy, with whom my friend had attended a very competitive private school in New York City, called Collegiate. The friend was now attending Williams College (an incredibly difficult college to get into), and was flunking several of his classes because he was convinced he was going to be a famous white Jewish rap star. He was getting ready to drop out of college and pursue this rap career–even though he had never produced a rap album, hardly knew anything whatsoever about music, and the few novice recordings of his rap music that he had made sounded horrible. Yet he had the confidence to believe that he could do this. He was literally walking away from one of the most competitive colleges in the United States, and whatever future that might have led to, in order to pursue a rap career. At the time this seemed absolutely insane to me, but the more I think about it now, the more beautiful I think it was: How many men by the time they reach their 40s, for example, would have tried something like this?

Think about the white-shoe lawyer, working in a large law firm and maintaining his serious life each day. Do you think this serious lawyer would be willing to walk away from this serious life in order to do something that he really wants to do, like pursue a rap career? The odds of this seem miniscule to me. This young kid pursuing a rap career had that life force, that enthusiasm that is really only present in the young. Most of us have lost this by the time we are in our mid-20s.

Several times a month, various people ask me why I spend time writing about life and career issues each day. After all, what I do is run career companies that are engaged primarily in getting people jobs. If this is my job then why do I spend so much time each day writing articles and doing other things that do not appear related to my business? According to the people I speak with, it does not seem to make sense that someone dedicated to getting people jobs would be so interested in the state of mind of the people in the job market.

Why not spend this time improving the functionality of the websites that I run?

Why not spend this time having direct conversations with job seekers?

Why not spend this time working on trying to make money for the company?

The greatest gift I believe you or I can receive is inspiration. When we are inspired we can go out and accomplish anything.

A job is just a job, but if you are inspired you can create whatever opportunity you want in the world. Inspiration is what changes everything and it is what will change your life–even more so than a new job. A new job is a good thing; however, being inspired is far more powerful and can help you to forever change your life for the better. All it takes is one dose of inspiration and something that ticks within you to inspire you to change your life.

At some point a man starts to droop, the enthusiasm leaves his face, and he starts to believe that there are massive limitations on him in the world. You know this man, or woman; it may be someone with whom you are very close. It may even be you. Perhaps you no longer believe that this or that is possible and feel constrained and limited by your abilities. You might have begun to believe that whatever you attempt in the world will be met with resistance and that you will fail. You may take refuge in your home, or apartment and resign yourself to doing the same job over and over again, believing that you will never really experience the sort of life you want, and the sort of life you see others living. You may watch others living in fame and glory on television, and read about them in the papers. All along you can only watch life from the sidelines because you have come to believe you are not good enough, talented enough and more.

Did you ever stop to think that it might be in some people’s best interest for you to not be good enough? Perhaps your parents do not want to see you do better than they have done in life. Perhaps your spouse wants to see you remain at a certain level so they can control you. Perhaps your friends are afraid you will never stay friends with them if you do everything you are capable of. Therefore, you live your life and spend your career surrounded by people that help reinforce and perpetuate a view of yourself as someone resigned to a life of mediocrity, or even failure.

We go to schools and they teach us how to do many things; however, most do not inspire us about what is possible for us to accomplish by using the knowledge they have given us. Being inspired about what is possible is what can propel us to succeed in our lives and careers. When you are inspired you can do just about anything.

The reason I write each day is because I want to provide you with some inspiration to have and to create the sort of life you are entitled to, which you deserve. I would like to inspire you to make the absolute most out of yourself, and to do everything within your power to better yourself. I want you to be the best you possibly can be. But first you must realize that the power to do this lies within your own mind, and it is directly related to how inspired you allow yourself to be, and to what you believe is possible.

Libraries, book stores and other places are filled with countless tools meant to inspire you. Seek out sources of knowledge and inspiration that will inspire you as to what is possible in your career and in your life. Read and study inspirational texts and find a source of inspiration to help power you forward. You will only go as far in your life as you think you can. Most of us fail on this inside long, long before we fail on the outside. A man or woman can go through hell, but if this person knows on the inside that he or she is going to succeed and ultimately do amazingly well–then this person has nothing to worry about.

The road to the life you desire lies before you, you must simply pave it.

You Always Need a Back Up Plan

What You Will Learn It is important to have multiple options to fall back on during troubled times. Anything could go wrong at anytime and you need to have something which will help you out. In the case of your career, it is extremely crucial to monitor the job market and know at all times what is exactly happening around you. Being informed and having as many options as possible, helps in structuring out a stress-free life.

Being in the asphalt business in Detroit taught me very early on that things frequently go wrong. In fact, things go wrong so frequently, it is difficult to believe:

• Pumps break.
• Tanks break.
• Trucks break.
• People get injured.
• Employees do not show up to work.
• It rains.
• The police give you a hard time for the condition of your equipment.
• People do not pay you for the work you have done for them.
• Suppliers go out of business.
• Customers get incredibly angry with you.
• Accidents occur, and materials get spilled on roadways.
• People rob you.
• People steal your equipment.
• You need to “pay off” certain people in order to operate in certain geographic areas.

The list of things that go wrong in the asphalt business is virtually endless. I will mention this again: So many things went wrong when I was in the asphalt business it was difficult to believe.

I noticed all of this during my first month! The stress and number of things that had gone wrong on a regular basis was absolutely unbelievable. I was so stressed out. This was the only time I can remember being physically sick in my entire life. I had bounced a few checks because certain customers did not pay me. Some of my equipment was broken, and I did not have money to fix it. The stress had taken its toll, and one day, I simply could not get out of bed. When I moved, my head just started throbbing. I felt nauseated and sick, but thankfully, not to where I was throwing up; I was just overwhelmed with tremendous stress.

I was staying with my father in his apartment, and after work one Friday around 6:00 p.m. he took me to TGI Fridays for dinner. It was a Friday night, and I did not want to eat. The smell of food made my head throb. The more I heard the festive music in the restaurant, the more ill I felt. It was as if all the activity was removing the energy from my body. I had to ask my father to take me back to the apartment.

To this day I do not like loud restaurants because it reminds me of the stress I was feeling back then, on that one day. In fact, even writing about this makes me feel the same pressure in my head that I felt at that time. It was not pleasant at all, because I felt out of control and completely backed into a corner. I just didn’t know what to do. I knew my parents would not give me money, and I knew I had to make do on my own. I had to fight in order to survive, but I did not see any way out:

• I only had one truck and it was broken.
• I only had one bank account and there was no money in it.
• I only had one job and I needed my truck to do the work.

I finally realized one very important thing. That feeling of being cornered, of having no options, was incredibly frightening. It is an awful thing. As I lay in bed–not knowing what to do, my head throbbing, I realized that I never wanted to be in this situation again. I learned that having no options and feeling completely alone without any back up plan whatsoever was the absolute worst thing possible.

A short time ago, I had a conversation with a woman who did not make enough money after expenses to eat. She relied on her boyfriend to feed her every single night. I listened to her story, and it brought back memories from when I too felt like I had no options. From what this woman was telling me, unless she relied on her boyfriend, she would never be able to survive.

“Never be dependent upon a man, or just one person,” I told her. “If you are dependent upon just one person, you are going to be left with a life that does not fulfill you, and a life that you are not happy with.”

Any time we are completely dependent upon one person, one company, or one anything, we are in real danger. In fact, this is among the most dangerous positions you can put yourself in.

When I got out of law school, I considered working as an attorney in Detroit. However, in Detroit at the time, there was only one law firm that paid a salary competitive with the firms in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. I knew many of the people working in this Detroit law firm probably all worked harder than the attorneys in Chicago, a bigger city, because there were no other options in Detroit. If they wanted to earn a big city salary this was the only law firm for them in Detroit. For me, having no other options but this law firm was a terrifying prospect. If I did not like the law firm then I would be in a pretty sorry state. I would be stuck in Detroit with no other options. If I wanted to move to a different state I would need to take the bar exam in that state. These didn’t seem like very good options to me. I did not, of course, take a job in Detroit.

I also worked for a year in Bay City, Michigan, which is near Midland, Michigan, where Dow Chemical company is located. There are hundreds of chemists working at Dow Chemical, and Midland is in the middle of nowhere. Imagine how you would feel if you were a chemist working here and you did not like your job. You would probably have to move. You would have to sell your house. You would have to pull your kids out of school. You would have to leave your friends in the area. You would be without options unless you relocated.

This morning I walked into my office and looked at my computer and it had a big error message on the screen. I was understandably a little upset with this and screwed around for about an hour trying to get the computer to start. I do have two computers hooked up near my desk for these sorts of eventualities; In fact, I also keep two Internet connections available at all times, in case one fails. In addition, I also have a laptop that operates with a cellular connection in case my two internet connections fail. Since a lot of my job is done online, it is crucial that I always have a back up plan in case anything goes wrong. You always need back ups in case something goes wrong.

I operate numerous companies. A couple of years ago my most successful company was a student loan company. In fact, this company was so incredibly successful that at one point, it seemed like a good idea to drop everything and concentrate on just this. However, I never did. In fact, I focused on my other companies at that time period, such as my job search engines. Back then, I would have gotten a much higher return had I plowed all of my profits into student loans. But something incredible happened: The student loan market and credit markets collapsed completely. Almost overnight our entire student loan business lost over 95% of its revenue because the market froze up. Had I relied on this business exclusively, our company might have gone out of business altogether. Fortunately, we had numerous other businesses to pick up the slack. You always need to keep many fish in the water.

The existence of back up plans is not just confined to the computers I use, or to my businesses. It is something that I employ in virtually every area of my career. I have back up offices, back up servers, back up employees, back up power, back up this, and back up that, and virtually every form of back up you can think of. I learned from the asphalt business. I learned that I always needed several different back up systems. You too, need to have back up systems in everything you do. They are crucial in all respects.

One of my favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. The movie revolves around a group of airplanes headed towards Russia to release nuclear bombs. As one of the airplanes prepares to drop a nuclear bomb, the following exchange occurs between the pilot and the man operating the switches to open the bomb bay:

Kong:

Check bomb door circuits one through four.

Bombardier:

Ah… bomb door circuits, negative function. Lights red.

Kong:

Switch in backup circuits.

Bombardier:

Roger. Backup circuits switched in, still negative function.

Kong:

Engage emergency power.

Bombardier:

Roger. Emergency power on. Still negative function.

Kong:

Operate manual override!

Bombardier:

Roger. Ah… still negative function. The teleflex drive cable must be sheared away.

Kong:

Fire the explosive bolts!

Bombardier:

Roger. Um… still negative, sir. The operating circuits are dead, sir.

Kong:

Stay on the bomb run, Ace. I’m going down below to see what I can do.

Copilot:

Roger.

Kong:

(to DSO and Bombardier) Stay on the bomb run boys. I’m goin’ to get them doors open if it hare lips everybody on Bear Creek. (Proceeds through hatch to bomb bay. Kong studies a sparking tangle of wires above a suspended bomb, and then climbs atop, fanning the sparks with his stetson.)

I love this exchange because it shows a number of back up systems on airplanes so that if one system fails, another will be available to replace it. In an airplane, there are multiple back up systems. No back up system means that people will die if everything does not function properly. Back up systems are incredibly important in airplanes.

I have been reading about the recent Air France crash over the Atlantic Ocean for the past week or so and I was very interested to see the following story in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal titled Computer Failures are Probed in Jet Crash:

An international team of experts is building a scenario in which it believes a cascade of system failures, seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors, rapidly progressed to what appeared to be sweeping computer outages, according to people familiar with the probe. The Airbus A330, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm 26 days ago, killing all 228 aboard.

Based on initial physical evidence and information from automatic maintenance messages sent by the aircraft, these people said, the plane bucked through heavy turbulence created by a thunderstorm without the full protection of its flight-control systems — safeguards that experts say pilots now often take for granted.

Relying on backup instruments, the Air France pilots apparently struggled to restart flight-management computers even as their plane may have begun breaking up from excessive speed, according to theories developed by investigators.

The investigators stress it is too early to pinpoint specific causes. But whatever the eventual findings, the crash already is prompting questions about how thoroughly aviators are trained to cope with widespread computer glitches midflight.

If such emergencies do occur on today’s increasingly automated jetliners, many industry safety experts wonder how proficient the average crew may be in trying to rely on less-sophisticated backup systems.

The difficulty is, they’re rare enough that pilots can be unprepared, but likely enough to pose a real threat,” according to Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, an industry-supported group based in Alexandria, Va. “We need to examine how to deal with automation anomalies.”

Unlike jetliners built in previous decades — which required pilots to frequently manipulate controls and often manually fly the planes for long stretches — newer computer-centric aircraft such as the A330 and Boeing’s 777 are designed to operate almost entirely on automated systems. From choosing engine settings and routes to smoothing out the ride during turbulence and landing in low visibility, pilots essentially monitor instruments and seldom interfere with computerized commands. So when those electronic brains begin to act weirdly at 35,000 feet, the latest crop of aviators may be less comfortable stepping in and grabbing control of the airplane.

Here it looks like there were serious issues with the back up systems on the airplane. The issues with the back up systems are the likely cause of the crash.

Just as a back up systems failure can cause a plane to crash, the absence of adequate back up systems in your life can cause tremendous problems. It is crucial that you always have back up systems in your life and, more importantly, in your career. I have dedicated a large part of my career encouraging people to use back up systems and have access to them at all times. You need back up systems in your career and there is nothing more important than this.

When stock investors are investing in stocks, they almost never invest their entire savings or portfolio in one stock. Putting an investment in just one stock is usually a real mistake. For example, many people had their entire life savings invested with Bernie Madoff, and they lost everything. Very few investment advisors would ever advise you to invest your entire life savings with just one stock, or just one fund, but this is still what many people do, and the results are often disastrous. Your career is like a stock. There is a real danger in investing in just one person, one location or one relationship. You need to be aware of where you can invest at all times, and understand the market.

A good stock trader is likely going to review the stock pages in the paper on a daily basis to understand what is going on in the market. They want to know what is increasing in value and what is decreasing in value. They want to know which sectors are hot and which sectors are not hot. They want to understand what they should sell and what they should buy. They are always going to have various ideas of where to invest and they are almost always going to be diversified in multiple sectors so if something goes wrong in one area, they can be ready to invest in another.

Your career is no different than a stock. You should always be aware of where you can invest and what you can do if things go wrong in any area of your career. I recommend that people be aware of what is going on in the market and keep track of job openings that match their areas of interest– not only within their geographic sector, but also in other locations. You need to know how marketable you are at all times and you should always be mindful of where you can seek employment if things go wrong.

I have been reading a lot of stories about attorneys losing their jobs lately in various law firms around the United States. What typically happens is someone shows up at their office door unnannounced, walks in, and lays them off. Most of the attorneys never see it coming. The job sites I operate like LawCrossing.com, EmploymentCrossing.com, and Hound.com are sites that consolidate jobs in various industries. Visitors to the websites can see which firms are hiring at different points in time, and can help people keep track of what is going on in the market.

The time to start looking for a job, or to become aware of what is going on in the market is not when you have lost a job, or have quit a job. In my opinion, one of the smartest things you can do is monitor the market at all times. This means using sites like EmploymentCrossing.com even when you are not looking for a job, just to understand what it is going on in the market. This way you can formulate options. You always need options within your career, and a back up system in place. There are numerous advantages to monitoring the market at all times:

• You will know if you are being paid fairly.
• You will know if you can make more elsewhere.
• You will know if there are a lot of openings in your field at present.
• You will know learn what the job market is like for your geographic area.
• You will get a sense of how much job security you may have in your area.
• You will be ready to start looking for a job if things get bad or if you lose your job.
• You will learn that you might need to develop new skills.
• You will learn (it has happened!) if your own employer is trying to replace you, or is hiring in other divisions.

I could list numerous other reasons to constantly monitor the job market. But the main point is that you can learn a tremendous amount from doing so.

I meet people who have lost their jobs all the time. Many of these people have had the same employers for 30 years or more. When they lose their jobs they do not know what to do. They are completely confused, and angry. Remember: you never want to feel trapped by one person, job or employer. A back up system for your career and an awareness of the market at all times will provide you with the options you need in case something fails. The secret to your success lies in making the most of all available options, and being able to do so, even when things go wrong. And make no mistake, there are always things that will go wrong.

Narcissistic Entitlement Syndrome

The word “narcissism” comes from the Greek character Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and was made famous by the Greek poet Ovid. The story is one of great psychological complexity. In the story, Echo falls in love with Narcissus and gets rejected. The story makes it clear that Narcissus is only able to love himself and not others. Conversely, Echo completely loses herself in her love for Narcissus and has no sense of self at all. At the end of the story, Narcissus tells Echo, “I would die before I would give you power over me,” and Echo responds, “I give you power over me.” Both Narcissus and Echo die because their love is unattainable. They, like many of us, cannot find a balance between themselves and others.

What You Will Learn The Narcissistic Entitlement Syndrome (NES) plagues a lot of people in the job market today. People with NES see themselves as special, believe they should have whatever they want, and continually inflate themselves while putting others down. People who have NES are likely on a dangerous collision course with failure. Even if the persons with NES do not fail, the chances are great that, they can negatively affect you if you work with them. You need to avoid people with NES.

One of the greatest problems facing many people in the job market today is what I call Narcissistic Entitlement Syndrome (“NES”). This is especially prevalent among the younger people of this generation. I would also argue that it is a reason why the United States of America is experiencing an overall decline in terms of economic productivity and its contribution to the world. I first started noticing NES several years ago amongst recent graduates of elite law schools. Over the past five or six years I have watched NES infect a large proportion of younger workers in the United States, and spread beyond this to many seasoned members of the job market.

People who suffer from NES often find themselves out of a job very quickly-whether they quit, are fired, or simply move between employers to deal with their disorder. I need to be clear that this, in my opinion, is an extremely serious subject, and something I believe probably more than 10 percent of the workforce suffers from. I am talking about a disorder I see virtually every week in my conversations with young workers in the job market-and older ones as well-and it is something that can cause your career to self destruct.

NES is something that is not easily defined but, in its simplest form, it is demonstrated by a person being inwardly focused and oblivious to the people and organizations that he or she are supposed to serve. I link the concepts of “entitlement” and “narcissism” when discussing this syndrome because the sense of entitlement most often has classic narcissistic undertones. People with NES see themselves as special, believe they should have whatever they want regardless of the feelings of others, and continually inflate themselves while putting others down. There are five major characteristics that people with NES often exhibit:

First, they are generally preoccupied with fantasies of limitless brilliance, power, and success. While these types of thoughts may occur from time to time even amongst healthy people, the person with NES will generally be quite consumed by these fantasies. Advancement and achievement are extremely important to them and they envision the environment around them as one where they should be the center of all others’ attention due to their achievements.

Second, people with NES generally have an exaggerated sense of self importance that is not commensurate with their actual level of achievement. They expect to be recognized as superior to others without a corresponding level of achievement. People with NES will also generally exaggerate their achievements to those around them. Indeed, people with NES like to speak about their achievements (and do) quite frequently. As a product of these fantasies, the person will often possess a very arrogant attitude. People with NES believe they are “special,” and that they should only associate with and work for other high-status people and institutions.

Third, a person with NES generally lacks empathy and is unwilling (or unable) to identify with the needs or feelings of others. Interpersonally, they are often quite exploitative, taking advantage of others in order to achieve their own ends. In this respect, people with NES often view those around them as objects to be manipulated in service of their ultimate fantasies of power.

Fourth, people with NES are most often very envious of those around them, particularly those who have advantages they themselves do not. At the same time people with NES believe that others are also envious of them.

Fifth, people with NES require excessive admiration. They need constant approval from those around them. People with NES believe that they should be constantly admired by others.

While the psychological underpinnings of all this could certainly be explored in great detail, the narcissism is usually something that the person has developed as a façade and coping mechanism to deal with underlying feelings of defectiveness and isolation. When such people and their work are criticized, they often react with great internal rage because they believe their self image has been deflated. Their response is often to further isolate themselves, and they may do so by leaving the profession they are in, switching employers, or simply directing their rage at those who have criticized them.

There is a difference between healthy and unhealthy narcissism within a company. It is, of course, healthy to have a basic sense of your rights. You have a right to be treated fairly, and you also have a right to be proud of your achievements and to tell others about them. Narcissism becomes unhealthy, however, if you become obsessed with having people think you are special, and if you have not just a sense of your own rights–but no regard for the rights of others.

In an essay, “Working with Problems of Narcissism in Entrepreneurial Organizations,” Richard Ruth of the University of Virginia writes:

Contemporary practitioners, both clinical and organizational, are faced with the pervasive presence of narcissistic disorders in those who consult us. It is a disquieting encounter, because–even as we recognize that our work to understand and assist persons and organizations with narcissistic pathology has increased the reach and efficacy of our interventions, and the lessons of this work in turn have transformatively impacted psychoanalytic theories-there are particular qualities at work with narcissism that are painful to work with analytically, perhaps in significant part because they militate against a defensive introduction of non-analytic methods into analytic work. It is in the nature of narcissistically organized persons, and perhaps also, I will argue, narcissistic organizations, to deny the reality of the other (i.e., the analyst), to wrench the analyst into playing a hated but necessary part in the patient’s internal drama, to try to disable or destroy the analyst in the service of a soothing return to a narcissistic self-sufficiency, and to project onto the analyst, with resentful hatred, a whole internal world of persecutory and toxic part-objects, as the first step toward eventual understanding, health, and wholeness.

While this quote may seem overly complex, it does elucidate a final characteristic of NES that I believe merits consideration: that a person with NES will not confront his or her weaknesses because doing so would interfere with his or her inflated sense of self. Instead, institutions and individuals that call into question that sense of self of the person with NES are perceived by the person as toxic objects. As a final point, this explains why people with NES may change employers frequently or leave their chosen profession.

I realize the picture painted above of NES may appear extreme, however it is important to note that NES is s quite common, especially among the highest performing people inside most organizations. Again, I would estimate that over 10 percent of people starting their careers in major firms have NES and will have more difficult careers for that reason.

People with NES are generally the people who have come from the very best schools and have had a historical pattern of academic achievement that is nothing short of extraordinary. NES is something that can actually create the sort of super achiever who shows up to work and truly excels. In a scholastic environment, where such persons have the luxury of choosing most of their courses, working hard, and getting immediate feedback via grades, and in conditions that demand performance at a high academic level, persons with NES are likely to thrive.

It is very easy for me to pick up the signs of NES when speaking with young people in the job market and others. People with NES generally believe that they should be given the type of work that they want. They also tend to believe that they are extremely intelligent and valuable to their employer. In addition, these sorts of people tend to be very calculating, analyzing most situations vis-à-vis whether or not they are getting the upper hand. If they are criticized by their employer, they may simply leave, rather than facing the possibility of any shortcomings in ability or performance.

As a recruiter I can tell you that I see this occur frequently. Because our firm solicits telephone calls and interest from the highest caliber people on a daily basis, the NES person is one of types of people we often speak with. The following similarities generally define the people with NES whom I speak with:

-They generally have not worked at a “real job” before starting as a first-year associate inside a law firm;

-They generally did exceptionally well in college and attended a top 10 law school (NES, in fact, appears to be more likely to occur in a person who has attended better law schools);

-They generally come from a sheltered, upper middle-class background, or their parents are academics;

-They generally believe they are smarter than the people they are working with.

In essence, people with NES would likely never have made it into a prestigious law firm had they not been sheltered by school, parents, and others for so long. The artificial academic environment, the home environment of privilege, the constant positive feedback from academic institutions (where social dynamics are not as emphasized as much as common academics might have been), and the lack of prior work experience all serve to isolate the person with NES, allowing their condition to grow in the absence of a “real world” environment. While I would be the first to argue that a law firm is not necessarily a real world environment, it is much more like the real world than a school or a sheltered upper middle-class upbringing is.

The issue with NES inside a law firm and other organizations is that the persons with this disorder are primarily in service of themselves. For the most part, working for an organization is something that is not going to quickly lead to massive glory, riches, or fame. Instead, employees are hired to work hard to make money for their firm. There may be little opportunity for the sort of continual positive feedback and the kind of reassurances the NES person needs, and may be used to from his or her upbringing.

What usually happens to the NES persons is that he or she does not hold up well against the initial criticism that all new workers in most companies receive–no matter how constructive the criticism may be.  The person do not take orders well, nor do they understand why others are considered to be their peers. Such people most often leave the employer quickly with fantasies about achievement in a much higher caliber work environment. Or, they may switch between firms for a few years. Some start their own businesses-most of which fail. A few stick with it and become better employees.

While this topic has gone largely unexplored, it is very real and it affects numerous people-especially the ones who appear strongest on paper. I do not pretend to know the answers. Certainly, the inability to find a balance between one’s self and others is a serious condition. Recognizing the presence of a problem like this is usually the first step. The second step, then, would be correcting the problem by getting help. The biggest challenge in dealing with this condition, though, is that those who need help are not likely to ever realize or admit they have it.

If you have completed reading this article, you most likely do not have NES because, if you did, you would not confront it by reading all the way through. You would have stopped several paragraphs ago. What you should understand, though, is that the people you work with who have NES are likely on a dangerous collision course with failure. If the NES person does not fail within your organization, the chances are great he or she can negatively affect you if you work with him or her. Do your best to avoid NES people.

The Sun Does Not Always Shine Forever

One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was: “The sun does not always shine forever.”  I don’t remember who the person was, or even when I heard it, but the words were so powerful I will never forget them.  What this meant to me was good fortune does not continue forever. Instead, the most important thing we can do in our work lives is (1) be ready for change and (2) prepare for change.  Instead, what many of us do is guard against change.  Guarding against change rarely does any good and usually does more harm than good.

What You Will Learn Change is inevitable. Prepare for change. Guarding against change does more harm than good. Be constantly aware of change in the market and find somewhere you can provide value that matches your contribution.

Are you in a role in your career right now where you are guarding against change?  It is never good to be on the defensive in your career and life. Instead, you should be on the offensive.  The people who win in their careers and lives are always the people who are on the offensive.  When you are on the offensive, you are winning, and when you are on the defensive, you are retreating.  You cannot retreat forever.  Inevitably, you will find yourself boxed in with nowhere to go.  At that point, you will lose your job, your home, and whatever you are doing at the moment.

The best possible thing you can do is be on the offensive.

There are many companies in America on the defensive right now.  These include companies in the financial industry and numerous manufacturing companies.  When I have been out and about in Los Angeles and heard people talking, I’ve heard things like, “No one is hiring.  There are no jobs.”  While I disagree with this statement, I do believe these people are finding a disproportionate number of firms and companies who are not hiring because they are in retreat.  Companies go into retreat when people stop spending, and many give up and simply close their doors.

All over the United States, an incredible number of people are being laid off. What is happening is very sad, and it’s devastating to the people being affected by it.  When times are good, companies hire people very aggressively.  In many cases, they hire people where their skills are actually redundant.  I have seen this happen more times than I can count.

When business is good, law firms and other companies start hiring as many people as they possibly can to do the work.  The people they hire become very “cocky” and will jump from firm to firm in search of more money or more prestige.  The people inside the organization will make more demands on the company for benefits and other things.  They may refuse to work as many hours. They may band together against management. They may go on message boards and complain about their employer.  Meanwhile, these same people watch their lifestyles get better and better, and they go out and purchase nice cars, they may move into nicer apartments or homes, and they feel good about the lives they have achieved.

This is what happens all over. When a company is doing well, the people working inside the company decide (rightly so) they have contributed to the growth of the company and want in on “the action.”  In the largest companies, the people may unionize.  In smaller ones, the people may band together and simply demand more benefits or higher salaries. It may be a good idea to try to get benefits when things are going well.  In theory, there is nothing wrong with this idea.  This is a process that is repeated over and over at countless organizations around the world when things are going well.

During good times, a customer service department may go from one to five people.  Other areas of the company may experience similar growth.  When the business goes away, as it inevitably does in many recessions, the people in the department start doing everything possible to protect their jobs.  Despite the fact very few calls are being received, the people in the customer service department will band together and claim they are all needed to field the few calls coming in.  The people will tell of the incredible need for customer service representatives, and how much the company will be affected if they are not all there.  These cries for “good customer service” will often come despite the fact there are no customers.  The management will listen to this and fear taking action.  The management will continue paying these representatives and vendors.

Inside law firms, you may see memos or emails like the one below being sent from the partners to the associates about the work loads:

From: John Quinn
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 2:10 PM
To: Attorneys
Subject: things are slow right now

 

More so in some offices than others. Lawyers are funny. In April, May and June we averaged over 200 hours per attorney – an unbelievable, perhaps unparalleled work pace for a firm as large as ours. Many wondered how we could possibly keep that up. Now we’re averaging 150 plus per month and people are worried. So one point to be made here is that “slowness” is relative.

 

The pace is down significantly because a number of major matters, on which scores of attys were working full time, went away–trial ended, the case settled, etc–at the same time. 10 of the largest billing matters in 2008 thru the end of Sept, 9 have been completed. These are the kinds of cases you do not replace immediately.

 

This really shouldn’t be a cause for concern though. Our basic practice strategy–focusing on financial litigation, trial work, being able to be adverse to financial institutions, etc–is clearly sound. In fact, in this business environment, we’re better situated than any firm I know. Lots of claims will be brought arising from the financial chaos and they will require firms that can be adverse to banks. We are at the top of that list. Many law firms will suffer. I don’t think we will.

 

There are lots of business development issues and non-billable tasks to be done. We expect everyone will pitch in on such projects when asked to do so.

 

John B. Quinn
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP

While there is likely truth to a memo like this, the fact is when work starts decreasing inside companies and law firms, people may get very nervous.  The attorneys inside law firms become very nervous because the less work there is, the more they realize the sun may not continue to shine forever.  It is a very scary world when we realize we do not always have employment stability.  This is what happens in all companies and organizations, however.  Things eventually slow down, and jobs eventually begin to disappear.  There is a cycle of creation and destruction which characterizes all industries.

A few years ago, I was reading about what a big deal Dell Computers was, and how the company was invincible.  Now I am reading article after article about its layoffs and declining market share.  A couple of years ago, I remember reading articles about how amazing Goldman Sachs was, and how it was the most successful investment bank of all time, and how certain people there were earning 100s of millions of dollars.  Now I am reading how this company is no longer an investment bank and had to borrow money from Warren Buffett.  Recently, I’ve read about how great Apple Computers is, but even more recently, I’ve read rumors that Steve Jobs is sick and dying.  When he dies, the company will lose any momentum it has.  Yesterday, I read that, in September the American steel industry had one of its best quarters ever, but the final quarter of the year was one of its worst.  Now steel plants all over the United States are being shut down, and workers are being laid off.  Things are so bad for the US steel industry they are now seeking a government bailout.

I read articles like this on a daily basis, and what it all says to me is we cannot take anything for granted.  Inside law firms, people start losing their jobs when work slows down.  The law firms generally begin whittling away their weakest (i.e., the people they dislike the most, or the people they feel contribute the least) for performance reasons.  The attorneys are told their work is not up to par, or asked to look for other jobs.  This process will generally occur until the law firm is healthy and earning again. 

This same process occurs inside companies. The companies will do everything within their power to eliminate as many redundancies as they possibly can so they can return as rapidly as possible to profitability.

The more layoffs I’ve read about in the papers recently, the more I realize how the sun has stopped shining for so many people.  All over the United States, and throughout the world, an incredible number of people have built lives for themselves which are now slipping away.  Employers are doing everything possible to eliminate waste.

Where does this leave you?  First, you need to be ready for change.  You simply cannot expect that your job will go on like it has forever. The idea that the steel industry in America could go from one of its best quarters ever, to one of its worst almost overnight, sends an incredible message: nothing is secure.  My grandmother lived through the Great Depression and after this she lived her life in an incredibly frugal way.  While this extreme may not be necessary, it is important to understand you need to be ready for change and should have a rainy day fund. If you do not have one now, start creating one.

You should also be prepared for change.  This means being aware of other potential jobs you could have and knowing what is going on in the market – one of the most important things anyone can do.  While I am the Chief Executive Officer of EmploymentCrossing and am biased, I can assure you using a site like this is an incredibly intelligent and very good use of your time.  A site like this is no different than checking the stock market to check your worth and the worth of your stocks.  You need to be watching the market because the market is your job security.  In a good market, you are fine, and with a poor market, you have something serious to worry about.  You need to be prepared for change.

Do not spend your life guarding against change.  It will do you no good.  You need to be proactive with your life and your career.  If you find you are protecting yourself and guarding yourself in your existing career, this is not a good sign.  Generally, this means you feel you may not be providing value commensurate with what you are paid.  If this is the case, you need to step up and provide more value, or find somewhere you can provide value that matches your contribution.

You Need to Be Relevant to Your Employer

What You Will Learn It is essential to realize what business you are in. You need to sell yourself to the correct audience and know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible. You need to be relevant and understand the skill you are offering. You should understand your market and know what your customers want.

In the mortgage industry many jobs have simply disappeared. This has put tens of thousands of people out of work.  While there are many who manage to hang on in all downturns, for the most part, many people in the mortgage industry have lost their jobs.

People who lose their jobs in the mortgage industry generally have a couple of options. One of the most incredible options they have is to try and find another job in the same industry, because this is what they know, which is what many are doing.  They do their best to network, and email their resume out to every opening they can find in the mortgage industry.

“The job market is really tight,” they will tell you.

They may get an occasional interview, but they do not get the job because the companies they are interviewing with eventually realize they do not have the business to hire the person.  They may also realize there is someone out there who is more qualified.  The criteria for these jobs has become much more stringent.  Eventually, after weeks or months of looking for a job, the person may say something like:

“I need to wait for the market to pick up.  I simply cannot find a job.”

To illustrate further the current state of the mortgage industry, the headquarters of Countrywide Mortgage is located in Hidden Hills, near Los Angeles. As you might imagine, there are acres of buildings for Countrywide and other mortgage companies around this area sitting practically empty.  Not too long ago, these buildings were filled with thousands of people selling mortgages to mortgage brokers and others.  Now, most of these people are out of jobs. All around this area, businesses are closing and people are pretty desperate. In the early evenings, if you drive by these Countrywide buildings, you can see inside. There should be hundreds of people, however, in most cases you see no one.

Recently, I was playing golf with a friend who lives in Hidden Hills. When he arrived to play, he was very upset.

The night before, my friend had been invited to a small party at his friend’s multimillion dollar house. The friend was an unemployed mortgage broker who’d purchased the house when he was employed and doing very well. He’d been told the party was a social occasion. Happy to go, he’d shown up wearing jeans. When he arrived he immediately realized something was wrong – his friend was wearing a suit, and everything seemed a little  ”too professional.”  A few minutes later, he was given a brochure about some Donald Trump condominium going up in Florida.  His friend started showing a movie about the development and began telling everyone at the party if they “wanted in,” he could immediately assist them with financing a condominium.

Everyone was astonished. A group of people who’d been invited to a party were suddenly being encouraged to buy and finance condominiums thousands of miles away they’d never seen in their entire lives.  My friend got up and left the party upset he’d been suckered into a sales presentation.

While I have nothing against aggressive sales practices, what this story represents to me is someone who is holding on to a paradigm that no longer exists. While people may have been speculating on condominiums sight unseen years ago, this is no longer the case.  Here, the mortgage broker was doing everything he could to hold onto a profession and a life that no longer existed for him.  This example is extremely important to understand because it has a lot to do with you, your career, and what will end up happening in your life.

From what I understand, the mortgage broker, in this example, was on his way to losing his house through foreclosure.  His world was literally crumbling around him.  Like the man in the store, he was making a fundamental error so many people make: He did not understand how to adapt to a new paradigm.  Understanding your paradigm and what you do for a living is the most important thing you can possibly do with your career because paradigms are always changing.  The sun does not shine on every specific type of job forever.  We get comfortable with one specific type of job and believe we should always do this.

A couple of weeks ago, while shopping, I met a man who was working in the computer industry.  He told me he had made over $250,000 a year just two years ago writing software for mortgage companies.  Now, he was working in a store selling sweaters and shirts to men for probably no more than $12 an hour. 

“There are no jobs for programmers in the mortgage industry,” he told me. 

The man who was trying to sell mortgages and Trump Condominiums in Florida was in the business of sales. If he realized this, he would likely not be having the problems he is having now.  He could apply to every sales job available and probably easily get one. 

The man I met selling sweaters in the store was also in a business: The business of programming.  Instead of applying to every programming job available, he was stuck in believing he was a specialist in programming computers for mortgages and, for this reason, he could not find a job.

In everything you do, you need to understand what your basic business is.  Far too many companies and individuals fail to understand this.  They end up “going out of business”.  Some of the largest and most profitable companies in the United States used to be railroad companies.  These were the “Internet moguls” and tycoons during their age.  However, when trucks came along, none of these railroad companies entered the trucking industry.  Instead, they clung to the belief they were in the railroad business.  If they had realized they were actually in the transportation business, they could have started offering trucking and other transportation services to their clients. Because of their belief they were in the railroad and not the transportation business, many great railroad companies ended up going out of business.

In your career, it is essential you realize what business you are in.  You should not be blinded by the specifics of what you do and, instead, should understand the generality of what your specific profession in fact is.  This is the way to stay employed, and it is also the means to continual improvement.

W. Edward Deming gives an excellent example of a time when there were carburetors in all cars.  The people who made carburetors continued to improve their product.  Soon, however, fuel injection was developed, and everyone stopped using carburetors.  With very few exceptions, many very large companies that formerly made carburetors went out of business.  They should have realized they were in the business of finding better ways of putting the correct mixture of fuel and air in the combustion chamber of engines.  This is what the mortgage broker was doing wrong as well: He failed to realize he was in the business of sales.

Something similar happened to the makers of Swiss watches in Switzerland.  The Swiss invented the quartz movement; however, they failed to realize the gigantic impact this would ultimately have on their business.  The Swiss continued to make mechanical watches and market these even after inventing the quartz movement.  Eventually, the number of people making watches in Switzerland went from 65,000 to around 10,000 in a decade.  The Swiss failed to realize they were in the business of making watches and they did not take into account the needs of their market.

What you need to do in your career is the same thing companies need to do: they need to understand their market.  When you understand your market, you have the ability to provide your customers with products and services that meet their needs.  You and your career are a product.  You need to sell yourself to the correct audience and know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible.  You need to know what your audience wants and requires.

In 2001, General Motors released the Pontiac Aztek.  The car was voted the ugliest car in the world by the British newspaper, The Telegraph.  The vehicle was criticized many times in Steve McConnell’s book about software design, Code Complete 2: The Pontiac Aztek and the Perils of Design by Committee.  According to another commentator, Dan Norman:

In the mid-1990s, then-General Motors Corp. Chairman John G. Smale decided to bring the world’s biggest automaker a dose of the ‘give-the-people-what-they-want’ethic that’d animated Smale’s old company, Procter & Gamble Co. And what the people wanted was sexy, edgy and a bit off-key – in short, a head-turner. General Motors’ culture took over from there. Design would be by committee, the focus groups extensive. And production would have to stick to a tight budget, with all that sex appeal packed onto an existing minivan platform. The result rolled off the assembly line in 2000: the Pontiac Aztek, considered by many to be one of the ugliest cars produced in decades and a flop from Day One.

 

The Aztek represented all that is wrong with GM’s design process, that official said. The concept car actually did something few GM designs do: arrive before a trend — this time, the crossover SUV that combined the attributes of a truck and a passenger car. And GM had high hopes to sell 50,000 to 70,000 Azteks a year, putting Pontiac on the cutting edge.

 

Then came production, the executive said. The penny-pinchers demanded costs be kept low by putting the concept car on an existing minivan platform. That destroyed the original proportions and produced the vehicle’s bizarre, pushed-up back end. But the designers kept telling themselves it was good enough. “By the time it was done, it came out as this horrible, least-common-denominator vehicle where everyone said, ‘How could you put that on the road?’” the official said.

 

Sales never reached the 30,000 level needed to make money on the Aztek, so it abruptly went out of production. The tongue-in-cheek hosts of National Public Radio’s “Car Talk” named it the ugliest car of 2005. “It looks the way Montezuma’s revenge feels,” one listener quipped. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000321.html

In an oval office interview in January of 2006, President George Bush said he believed General Motors and Ford needed to produce “a product that’s relevant.”  The idea of producing a relevant product is one of the most important things any manufacturer can do.  Being a relevant product is also something essential for your success, as well.  In a bad economic climate, one of the strangest things people do is try and continue being a ‘product’ that is no longer needed.  This is nonsensical.

You need to be relevant and understand what the skill is you are offering.  The worst thing you can do is not be relevant to the market you are serving.  It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve.  Being relevant is about much more than just getting a job, however.  Being relevant also relates to serving your employer with the skills they need.  You need to understand your market and what your customers want.

One of the biggest failures in my career was due to not understanding my market.  When I got out of law school, I worked for a federal judge who had recently been appointed to the bench.  My interest in this job was being brilliant and showing how smart I was, what a good writer I was, and how much detail I could put into opinions and more.  I did a very good job with the harder intellectual aspects of the work.  The judge I worked for admired my intellectual abilities, but his biggest concern was for me to produce work that was completely error free.  Because I was so interested in the intellectual aspects of the work, I did not always give him what he wanted in terms of error free work.  This was upsetting to him.  Because of my concern with the “meat” of what I was doing, and not the details, I ended up leaving this position after one year, when I’d been hired for two. Had I not left, I am pretty confident I would have lost my job.  I was not giving my employer what he wanted and, instead, was making up my own rules.

The next legal job I held, I was sought out for my intellectual insight into legal issues. You need to know your audience.

When you think about your career, how often have you made up your own rules?  You need to understand your audience.  You need to know you are in the business of selling a product to people, and you need to give them what they want.  You are a product, and your job is to give your audience exactly what it wants.  This is the way to get, and keep a job.

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