The Importance of Discipline

One of the most popular misconceptions in the world is that the people who end up being the most successful somehow achieve this success through short cuts, not working hard and other miracles of fate.  What I do know is that each time someone is able to achieve incredible success without a lot of work and with some luck, multiple news stories will be generated about this event and the person will become almost legendary for their instant success. Why?  Because it is so rare and it gives people an incredible amount of hope.  People want to [Read more]

How to Talk About Other Interviews in Your Interviews

One of the questions I receive quite often from people I am working with is whether or not they should talk about other interviews while they are interviewing with a potential employer. Let me emphasize one thing: This is one of the more important questions you will ever be asked in an interview. Regardless of your qualifications, how you respond to this question will have a direct bearing on whether or not you receive an offer from the employer asking you this question. Be very careful as to how you answer this question. At the outset, it is important to point out that you do not have to answer this question. This question will also not be asked very often. Indeed, it is my opinion that this question is entirely inappropriate. In no instance should you even volunteer this information unless you are asked. The problem is that if you are asked this question, you will look bad if you refuse to answer it. Not answering the question gives the employer the impression that you will similarly “hide the ball” when you are working for them. It also does not do much to assist you in establishing a bond of [Read more]

Go Beneath the Surface to Find a Job

One of the most interesting theories about life on earth is the fact that it exists and can be found in conditions that conventional wisdom would believe it cannot exist in. Carl Wirson of the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institution wrote in a 1991 paper:

In 1991, scientists aboard the submersible Alvin were in the right spot at the right time to witness something extraordinary. They had sailed into the aftermath of a very recent volcanic eruption on the seafloor and found themselves in a virtual blizzard. They were densely surrounded by flocs of white debris, composed of sulfur and microbes, which [Read more]

You Need to Bring a Singular Focus to Everything You Do

What makes a person really good at something? The answer to this question is identical to the reason for exceedingly high success in any profession. There are people who are really good at finding jobs. People who are good at finding jobs bring an incredible level of focus to their search. This is the level of focus I want you to bring to your job search as well. In order to get the position you are seeking, you need to be focused and follow one very simple rule. In order to be good at your job you need to be focused as well. No one becomes good at something and stays that way without focus. If you understand the rule I am about to share with [Read more]

In Defense of Long-Term Employment With a Single Employer

If you go into any business that has been around more than twenty or thirty years, you will inevitably find a handful of people who have been there from the very beginning of their careers. These well adjusted souls will typically report to work each day at a similar time and have managed to be the only ones presumably left in the organization after generation upon generation of people coming and going. Many people do last for decades in the same organization and there are characteristics which uniformly seem to characterize these sorts of people. While I [Read more]

You Need to Have Desire to Achieve Your Goals

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

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

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

Your Beliefs About Yourself are Controlling Your Destiny

When you go down any street in virtually any major urban environment in the world,  you will see people living on the street. I have lived in Europe, Asia, and all over the United States and wherever I have gone, I have seen people living on the street in various parts of these cities. The only place I can honestly say I have not seen this is in rural Ohio, where several members of my family live surrounded by miles of corn fields. Perhaps homeless people live in the corn fields there, I do not know. Who [Read more]

Cheap Is Expensive: A Marine Disaster

One thing I’ve learned in my lifetime is if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Every day so many of us are glued to televisions and see people becoming rich overnight on game shows. Growing up kids receive a lot of messages that you can become rich and famous without an education. Throughout America, there is a belief you can get something for nothing. One of the most successful men I ever met, a man who owned numerous auto dealerships in Detroit, once told me that “Nothing is free and there are never any deals.” This [Read more]

My Lesson From the Missionaries

Several years ago, I was working at a law firm and virtually from the moment I arrived a woman I’ll call “Linda” used to come into my office for a few hours a day to talk. Her topic? How bad things were at the law firm. She would share one rumor after the other about how many bad things were going on at the law firm. I was treated to information about allegedly corrupt activities, affairs, who did not like who, incredible insights into who was about to be fired, what different people had said to her, and [Read more]

Choose Your Frames of Reference Wisely

I spent the summer following my first year of law school working at the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) in Washington, DC. The entire summer and the events leading up to it resulted in one of the strangest experiences I have ever had. After I got the job with the DOJ, I was required to undergo a security clearance with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After contacting and questioning many people I knew in the past, the FBI also required me to take a physical and a drug test. In late spring, I went in for the physical [Read more]

Next Page »