I want to enjoy everyone I know, everything I buy, and every idea I come into contact with to the fullest. I feel that we need to really appreciate what we have to the absolute fullest. A few years ago, I was taking private pilot lessons and was very close to getting my pilot’s license–and then I stopped. It has been at the back of my mind for some time that I have not completed this training, and that I need to do something about it. Accordingly, I drove to the airport to sign up for classes and complete my training. If you dream of doing something, you should never stop close to the finish line. This is what most people do. You should always push through and hit your goal. The Camarillo Airport is a small airport that is about a twenty-five-minute drive from where I live in Malibu. It is sort of in the middle of nowhere, about twenty-five miles from civilization on all sides. I have always loved going to airports and walking around them, and this airport was no exception. Camarillo is not a commercial airport. It is mainly for people who own airplanes and fly for recreation. Since I live on the beach, I see lots of airplanes towing banners and advertising beer, new movies, and so forth, to the people sitting on the beach. All of these airplanes seem to originate from the vicinity of the Camarillo Airport. The flight school at Camarillo is right next to an “executive” airport hangar. So, I decided to go inside the hangar and look around. There was a woman in an office next door and she gave me a tour of the hangar. I spoke with the woman at some length about the airport. She told me that people like the airport because it is low-key and other people do not see them coming and going. She said lots of stars and very important businesspeople fly in and out of the airport regularly because it is more private, away from the “buzz” of Los Angeles. When I got inside the hangar, I was amazed. I saw a collection of around twenty-five airplanes that cost about $3 million each. I could not believe there was a collection of these airplanes right there. In addition, there were several jets, some of which were quite large. “Whose airplanes are these?” I asked. “They are various people’s airplanes. Most of the people fly them rarely. That floatplane right there belongs to Kenny G. He likes to fly out of here and go landing on lakes.” “I do not understand,” I said. “I do not either,” she said. “Can you charter them?” I asked. “Not these airplanes. These are owned by private people. Some of them have their own pilots, whom they hire whenever they travel, though.” As I looked around, I saw what was essentially a huge parking lot of multimillion-dollar airplanes that are very rarely used. It seemed amazing to me that so many people had these dreams of flying, yet their airplanes were grounded and hardly ever used. I wondered how many hangars like this one must exist throughout the world, wherein people’s once magnificent dreams of flying sit parked and waiting. One of the most important things you can do is to go after your dreams. Your dream could be something materialistic like owning an airplane or a boat, or it could be spending your time (or life) with a certain person. What happens, however, when someone achieves his or her dream? Regardless of how your life has gone, I am sure there are many dreams you have already accomplished. But, once you achieve your goals, what then? What you see with airplanes, you also see with boats. I grew up spending a lot of my childhood in marinas around Detroit because my stepfather operated a boat business. People would make all of this money and would purchase an expensive boat, and then end up taking it out only a few times a year–or less. It never made any sense to me. Why would someone spend all of this money on a boat if they had no plans on using it? I imagine the person dreamed of owning the boat for some time and was very excited about it. Then they got the boat and forgot about the fun they could have with it. As the dream of owning a boat was fulfilled, the boat somehow became less interesting or desirable to the person who bought it. We have all had the experience of starting on the road to fulfilling our dreams. To me, the airplanes I saw at the Camarillo Airport represented people who pursued their dreams and ended up reaching them. There are people who do everything they can to reach a goal, to get somewhere that they think is going to make them happy, and then when they get there, they do not appreciate it. They are not happy because their lives have not really changed the way they had hoped they would after achieving their dream. While all people do not live out their dreams by accumulating boats and airplanes, some do exactly the same thing with people. People dream of being close to another person, and often fulfill this goal. A marriage is a perfect example of two people coming together due to what is, in most cases, a dream one or (hopefully) both of them had. Someone told me recently that each year 5% of the adult population gets married. However, despite this percentage of people getting married, more than half of these people end up getting divorced. What happened to their dream? When I see couples fighting and deeply unhappy with each other, it really depresses me, because I know that neither person’s dreams are being fulfilled any longer. Over some time, the people’s wishes to spend their lives together suddenly fall by the wayside. Several years ago, my wife and I were driving someplace with a couple who, a few years previously, had appeared to be deeply in love. The story of how they met and how their relationship developed had been a real source of inspiration to me when I had first heard it. The man had dreamed of being with the woman for a long time and had sought her out for quite a while before she had agreed to go out with him. Soon they were married, but within a few years everything had seemed to change. The man had forgotten what his wife had once represented to him, or at least he was forgetting this more than he should have been. We were sitting in the backseat and the man was driving. The man was saying things to his wife like: “If you do not shut up, you stupid bitch, so help me god I am going to smack you!” He sounded extremely serious and determined in his tone. The woman was crying and shouting various insults to fuel her husband’s fury. There are certain fights that couples have that, when you witness them, you see they are at a level far beyond “normal behavior,” and you may accurately estimate that, as a result, the couple will thereafter divorce or be spending several unhappy years together. This was one of those fights. I did not get involved, but the fight disturbed me to quite a degree, especially since I knew how important both the man and woman were to each other. Nevertheless, they seemed to be in the process of throwing away their dreams. Couples often end up doing a lot of damage to their dreams and lives together. Usually this happens as a result of taking each other for granted, and the people within the couple decide to just throw it all away. When you see boats, exotic planes, and people who had once been the focus of someone’s dream suddenly being ignored and treated poorly, it is very sad. It is as if people reach a point where they do not appreciate what they have accomplished and the fact that they have fulfilled their dreams. If you fulfill your dreams, nothing is more important than being incredibly grateful for what you have done and enjoying the results. The person with the airplane should be getting out and enjoying the airplane. The person with the boat should be enjoying the boat. The person with the friend or spouse they one day dreamed of having, should enjoy his or her partner, and be eternally grateful. There is no use in having a goal or a dream if you do not enjoy and nurture the result when you finally achieve it. Simply put, if you achieve something, you should make the most of it. Far too many people reach a goal and then stop caring. This is the worst thing you can do, because deep down you will never appreciate any goal you attain in the future. Never allow your dreams, goals, and aspirations to sit on the sidelines. Cherish these things while you seek them as well as once you attain them. You need to enjoy what you have now in order to live your life to the fullest. THE LESSON Cherish your dreams, goals, and aspirations both while you are seeking them and after you attain them. If you dream of doing something, never stop short of the finish line. There is no point to goals or dreams if you do not enjoy and nurture the results once you achieve them; if you achieve something, you should make the most of it. If you stop caring once you achieve your goals, then you will never truly appreciate any of the goals you achieve in the future.

• One man had originally been a financial trader with a bunch of Ivy League degrees. He made his fortune by selling some trading system he had developed for $10 million or so.

• The other man had been an attorney with an impressive pedigree as well. One day, he won a huge settlement and made around $5 million.

Both men were in their 40s, and after these major career victories, each of them quit their jobs and bought gas stations on the New Jersey turnpike. These men did not know each other and were of no relation, yet they both ended up migrating into the same profession. How does one transform from being a person with incredible qualifications to a person who simply owns a gas station on the New Jersey turnpike? From what I understood, these guys were incredibly happy after leaving their careers and taking on new positions as gas station operators. Running a gas station that sees a lot of business can be very profitable. Most gas station operators make around 10 cents a gallon in profit from every gallon of gas that they sell. In addition, they make a lot of money on the concessions that they sell inside the shop. Also, a lot of customers pay with cash, and the gas station owners often do not declare and pay taxes on their cash sales. Owning a gas station is much different from being a Wall Street lawyer or trader. You report to work in jeans, not a suit. You often work with people who are not highly educated. Selling refreshments and gas is something, it would seem, that almost anyone could do. Why, then, did these men both plan such a drastic change in profession? Here are some likely possibilities:

• They wanted to be happy.
• They enjoyed working in the gas station.
• They could earn decent money in the gas station business and could maintain a high quality of life.
• They wanted to be independent, and having their own businesses allowed them this independence.
• They realized that much of what is going on and is expected of people in the working world is just complete nonsense.

The idea has always fascinated me: If you could rise up through the ranks in your company and become incredibly successful, hypothetically making enough money to retire–would your very next move be to purchase a gas station? Most people would probably not do this. Instead, they would choose to keep on doing exactly what they had been doing before. It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a prestigious job to do something viewed as much less prestigious. One of the most interesting things that I have seen in all my years in the recruiting industry, and as someone who has personally hired hundreds of people, is that many people out there seem to have been brainwashed into doing certain types of jobs and living certain types of lives. Most often, these people want to have the jobs that are considered the most prestigious, which pay the most, and are perceived as offering the most security. At the same time, the people who end up following all the rules to obtain careers and lives like this are often the most unhappy. If you have a job or are pursuing a certain career primarily because you think you should, or because others think you should, you are making a huge mistake. You need to understand that if you keep doing this, you are never going to be truly happy. You need to be living the life and having the career that makes you happy. The voices that you hear inside yourself, which tell you to pursue a certain profession or be a certain thing, are often not your own voice. They are the voices of your parents; they are the voices of your peers in school; they are the voices of the people you associate with at work. Around a year or so ago, I hired an investment bank to raise capital for one of the businesses I run. Despite the fact that the bankers have not yet raised the amount of money I am seeking, it has been an enjoyable year working with them so far and I have learned a lot. In addition, these people have raised awareness of our business in the market, simply by talking to certain key people in the industry. They have done a good job, and I have certainly learned a lot by watching how they operate. I have noticed that the venture capital firms I am dealing with have been laying off lots of people. So have the investment banks. Since I chose to raise money at an inopportune time, the offers I have received so far have not been all that good. One deal that I was hoping would go through ultimately fell apart because the investors could not come up with the money. Nonetheless, I feel good about having at least gained some attention in this market. Meetings with venture capital firms are fun and educational because the firms are typically run by pretty strong businessmen who know how to make deals happen. I have enjoyed speaking with these people because they have made me question many of the assumptions I have had about the businesses I operate. A couple of months ago I received a voicemail from someone at one of the venture capital firms, asking me to call him back. I was enthusiastic and assumed that he had called to make me an offer. Perhaps our company expansion would quickly come to pass. “I have been very impressed with your business,” he told me. “As a matter of fact, I cannot stop thinking about it. I do not think our firm is going to be able to get you the money you are seeking, but I would really like the opportunity to work with you,” he said. Given his enthusiasm, I asked the man to send over his résumé–and it was very impressive. In fact, it had all the right schools and all the right previous jobs leading up to the present one. Since he seemed so enthusiastic about working with me and my company, I invited him to come and meet with me in person. “Are you actively looking for a job?” I asked him. “No. In fact, if this is what you think, then I am not even sure it makes sense for me to come down and interview with you. I am just very impressed with the business and feel like it is a natural fit for me.” After having a few meetings with this fellow, I started to get the sense that he was probably looking everywhere he could for a job, and that he had probably been laid off. In addition, I got a distinct sense that he actually had no interest in me, or the business in particular, and was really more concerned with making sure he stayed on a certain track, wherein he would be making a certain amount of money per year and in a job that had a certain level of prestige. While it was unspoken, I also understood that he was extremely unhappy in his current job and did not feel comfortable doing it. Finally, this man voiced to me that his real interest and desire was to start his own business. This was clearly what he was most interested in doing with his life, no matter where he worked along the way, acquiring all the necessary skills. There is nothing wrong with any of this, of course, but it was not what he had represented in his initial conversations with me. Notwithstanding all this, I liked the guy. At the same time, I also realized that he was confused and did not really know what he wanted to do with his career and in his life. Many people, like this individual, end up getting “shook up” at some point and do not necessarily know what to do. This is often more problematical for people who have the best backgrounds, because they believe and have been taught that they need to be and operate on a certain path. While this guy was probably making at least $200,000 a year in his previous position, I decided to take a chance and I made him an offer to be a consultant for six months at $10,000 a month. During his time as a consultant, I told him, he could basically work on whatever projects he wanted to, as long as it helped our company. I told him to try to create projects and tasks for himself that he would enjoy. After the six months, if he worked out and was enjoying the job, I would be prepared to make him a more permanent offer. I made the offer on these terms because I knew that whatever job the man ended up taking (whether with me or someone else) it would be experimental and might not be something that would last for very long. As a side note, there is an obvious danger in hiring someone who wants nothing more than to have his own business. Namely, if you are training him in your business, he could possibly become a competitor. Several years ago, I had two legal recruiters working for me who I knew wanted to start their own businesses. Since I did not want to compete with them in the United States, I started telling them every time I spoke with them that Asia was the best place to be a recruiter, and this would be a great business to get into over there. Incredibly, when they eventually started their own recruiting businesses, they were both dedicated to recruiting in Asia. It was among the most humorous things I have ever seen, and these two recruiters are now currently handling almost all placements in Asia (10,000+ miles away from where our company concentrates its efforts). I figured this man might have had a lot to teach me and vice versa, and that this would be the best way to proceed with him until he figured out what he was going to do. I was pretty confident he would not take the offer and I was right. A few days after receiving the offer, he called me and declined. The reason was that I was not offering enough money, or any stock options, or other types of perks–things that he typically would have expected. “It sounds to me like you are at a real crossroads in your career. You are going to need to decide if you want to be a bureaucrat or an entrepreneur,” I told him. He knows that he has a choice to be one thing or another. He knows that he is at a crossroads. But my guess is that he will stick with doing exactly what he was doing before and will spend his entire life and career in a role that is not satisfying to him. Life is too short to be doing things you do not want to do. You should be doing what you want to do, whatever is in your heart. Maybe this means owning a gas station–maybe it does not. It can be anything that you enjoy. If you do not yet know what it is that you enjoy doing, you had better get out there and find it. As Marsha Sinetar says, “Do what you love; the money will follow.” THE LESSON It is important to have a career that makes you happy, rather than pursuing a career simply because you or others think that you should. Life too short not to be doing the things that you really want to do with your life. If you do not yet know the kind of work that makes you genuinely happy, you need to go and find it.

• First, there are those who are out there doing this or that and making things happen. These people typically put in years to perfect their craft, whether they are lawyers, actors, sports stars, businesspeople–or whatever. These people are actually doing something with their careers and lives. Their sense of self-importance and achievement comes from what they do. They are committed to getting things accomplished.
• Second, there are those who sit around writing about, talking about, and gossiping about those who are doing things in the world. Those who cannot do things or make things happen in the world are generally the ones who are best at writing, talking, and gossiping about those who are making things happen in the world. Writing, gossiping, reviewing, and passing judgment on people who are actually doing things is often a cheap shortcut to a sensation of power for those who lack the discipline necessary to do and create something that has worth. In reviewing, criticizing, gossiping, and so forth about others, the person can experience a fleeting feeling of importance.

When I was eleven years old, in February of 1981, the only television in our Detroit home was in my bedroom, and one time in the wee hours of the morning my mother and my four-year-old sister came into my room and watched Prince Charles and Diana get married. I have vague recollections of images from this wedding coming through as I tossed back and forth, incredulous that my mother and sister were disturbing my slumber all over some wedding spectacle. They both were so incredibly enthusiastic about the marriage. It seems funny to me that a single mother and her daughter would be watching this in the suburbs of Detroit, thousands of miles away from where the wedding was taking place. The marriage ultimately did not affect them in the least. Nonetheless, there they were, a little girl and her mother, glued to the television and watching a prince get married. As the years progressed, I would see one magazine after another arrive at our home with Diana on the cover and one rumor or another about her marriage. I would turn on the television and each day there was some gossip show that had a segment about the marriage. From the moment that marriage occurred, it seemed not a week went by wherein I did not hear some noise in the background about what Diana was doing. It was incredible to me that people could be so interested in one person. It was ironic, it seems, that Diana was eventually killed while she was in a car racing away from photographers. The public’s obsession with Diana is something that ultimately may have contributed to her death. Even today I see magazines in my house with her picture on them now and again, or I turn on the television and from time to time see a story about her. The public continues to be interested in Diana. Most of the world figures are never going to be like Princess Diana. Most of the public at large is never going to be an important politician, actor or actress, businessperson, and so forth; instead, what we often do is sit around and gossip, review and pass judgment on the people who are actually out there doing things in the world. The most popular magazines out there are magazines like the National Enquirer and Us Weekly: these are magazines that are continually gossiping, maligning, and generally discussing the lives, careers, successes, and failures of others. Why the intense interest in what others are doing? Why are people so fascinated with what others are doing and achieving in their lives? In my career I have seen the exact same thing: There are people out there who are doing and achieving things and, on the sidelines, there are those who spend the majority of their time as commentators on the people who are involved in doing things. This is a pattern that exists in every firm, company, and organization I have ever been involved with. It also is something that I have heard people talk about and have witnessed as a consistent pattern in any organization as well as the candidates I have worked with as a recruiter. Since I am also an attorney I will share with you some more of my insights into this. Several years ago the most popular legal site on the Internet was a site called Greedy Associates. This website was basically dedicated to associates inside of law firms who would gossip about people at their own law firms, and would disclose (sometimes maliciously) the financial states of affairs of various firms. Over the past ten years, the websites that have replaced Greedy Associates have all grown popular essentially by spreading rumors and bad news throughout law firms. Lawyers for the most part are not interested in flocking to websites for lots of positive information. Instead, their interest lies predominantly in going to websites where they can read about bad things that are happening to various employers. I started one of these websites myself, JD Journal, and was surprised by how much traffic the site got and by how interested lawyers are in this sort of news. I hate to say this but it is true: The great majority of people out there are incredibly interested in what others are doing–even more than their own lives. It is much easier to criticize and gossip about others than it is to achieve anything of significance in our own lives. To achieve something of significance requires an incredible investment of time and energy; it requires dedication; it requires risk; it requires believing in ourselves and overcoming obstacles. Conversely, gossiping or maligning others can usually be done very quickly by simply logging onto a gossip site or blog, sending an e-mail, or making a phone call. I want to also note a fact that is pretty subtle, but is an important one: The people who are most interested in gossip and so forth are most often the people who lack the dedication necessary to achieve anything of significance.

• Inside companies and organizations these people are the ones who feel alienated because when they do not do an assignment correctly they are told so.
• They are generally the ones who leave earliest, come to work the latest, and get the least done while they are at work.
• They are also the ones who are most likely to not get promoted because they do not put in a good effort.
• They are the ones who are disloyal and who easily find fault within their organization, and with the people working inside their organization, and with the products or services of their organization.

Lacking the dedication to do good work, the faculties to fit in with their coworkers and so forth, these people instead decide to turn their efforts toward gossip and criticism. When an employer is looking to hire new employees, one of the worst mistakes the employer can make is to bring in people like this. Just a few bad apples like this can easily destroy the whole bunch. In fact, it is precisely this fact and this attitude that can lead to the destruction of entire companies, governments, and so forth. Good organizations are experts in removing bad apples--and keeping the good ones around. For the past several years I have been involved in the property business, and I rent out office buildings, store fronts, executive suits, beach houses, and also premium beachfront real estate. My favorite business is the one involving premium beachfront real estate. The reason I enjoy this is that the clients I deal with tend to be big names in politics, show business, and so forth. It is not uncommon for a premium property I am renting out to an international celebrity to be surrounded by hundreds of paparazzi, and to have helicopters buzzing overhead all day while a certain famous person is there. Most celebrities do not want this attention and manage to slink into the property unobserved while they are on their vacations. However, there are some who prize this attention and find ways to alert the press when they are there. I have always been very good about being extremely discrete when a celebrity is staying in one of my premium properties. I never talk about it; I never tell anyone who is there, and I simply allow the celebrity to do his or her thing. However, a few months ago one extremely famous celebrity was staying in this premium beach house and had extreme demands for attention. This person had just finished filming a movie and the studio was putting him up for a one-week vacation. The actor wanted extreme privacy, and the reason was that he and his actor friends wanted to spend the entire vacation in the nude. Now, I do not know why someone would want to walk around nude for an entire vacation with a bunch of other men–but this was what was on the itinerary. The maid was astonished by this, but she simply did her job and reported the nudity to me later. As this man and his friends walked around the house nude every day, I went about my business seeing him on the covers of magazines, on television, and on billboards as I went about my day-to-day business. On the final day this nude actor and his friends were scheduled to presumably put their clothes on and get on a private jet to go back to whence they came, but the actor declared that he was staying another day and, on top of this, he refused to pay for it because “the maid had worked too much and the gardener had come” while he was staying there. This luxury property requires a lot of gardening, and after the gardener had come for an hour or so one day, all hell broke loose, and we had to get him out of there. The problem with this guy staying an extra day was that on his “extra day,” a bride from England was scheduled to come to the house with various armies of wedding planners, lighting designers, and so forth to set up for a large wedding scheduled to occur there. The actor flat-out refused to leave and got on the phone and told us that there would be “bizarre behavior” if the bride tried to enter the property while he was there. He was referring, we assumed, to the fact that he might be walking around in the nude. I was a little taken back by this, and the entire episode seemed just a little too much to believe. I had a serious problem on my hands because I knew that if the bride were unable to get into the house I could be subject to multiple lawsuits from her and countless wedding vendors. I finally decided I needed to take drastic action. I called one of the actor’s many assistants, who was also on the property: “If he is not out in an hour, I will call the police and every gossip reporter I can find and have him removed from the house.” I never would have actually done these things; however, after I made the threat, within fifteen minutes the man left. He knew that the press would have had an absolute field day with this episode if it had gotten out. I ended up letting the man stay an extra night as a courtesy, and the bride was able to get in with all her people at the appointed time. In the end everything worked out just fine. The reason everything worked out was that the actor was terrified of the press and how things would look to the public. He knew it would be a public relations and overall massive disaster, and people would talk about this the world over. I was able to quickly and painlessly solve the issue just using the power of gossip. It is something I am not proud of, but with my back against the wall I used it to great effect. I realized that my threat to use and create gossip came from a place of weakness. It was the best I could do and, while effective, it was admittedly pretty pathetic. The most powerful and influential people in the world are people like the actor I threatened to eject from the rental house, like Princess Diana, powerful businesspeople, and others. These are the people who make things happen and who are actually out there doing things that captivate the public attention. The people who live lives of significance are not the people who talk about and watch those who are making things happen; they are the ones who are accomplishing things. People who feel the need to gossip and malign others are usually coming from a place of weakness. There is nothing strong about gossiping and talking negatively about others. When you are coming from a place of strength this type of behavior is just something you do not need to engage in. The strongest people out there avoid gossip and avoid maligning others because it detracts from their ability to move forward. You should be focused on doing and not talking about those who are doing. THE LESSON Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.

A sacrificial lamb is a lamb (or metaphorical parallel) killed or discounted in some way (as in a sacrifice) in order to further some other cause. In typical modern usage, it is a metaphorical reference for a person who has no chance of surviving the challenge ahead, but is placed there for the common good. The term is derived from the traditions of Abrahamic religion where a lamb is a highly valued possession, but is offered to God as a sacrifice to obtain the more highly valued favour of God.

Sacrifice typically means to give something up of value to get something even more valuable in the future. Sacrifice always implies giving something up or doing something, or some sort of work, that is distasteful. The people in the world who achieve the most are the ones who are able to sacrifice. For example, Tiger Woods practices golf six hours a day and has since he was very young. Anyone who achieves something great is able to sacrifice. The concept of “sacrifice” is something that is amazingly important to our lives. We need to constantly be sacrificing in order to insure that we are advancing in our lives. While I am not sure why a baby lamb was sacrificed on my front door this morning by a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, the one thing I do know is that it is only through incredible sacrifice that our lives can change. This sacrifice has reminded me of the incredible sacrifice we need to do in order to live the lives we want to live. There are lots of forms of sacrifice out there. Mother Theresa is someone who sacrificed by caring for the dying, the sick, the poor, the hungry and others. She took people that society had abandoned and cared for them with compassion. She stated of sacrifice:

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Sometimes you too need to sacrifice in order to get ahead. Sometimes you need to move away from the familiar and what you expect in order to get the results that you are seeking in your life. Recently, I had an experience with an employee who quit our company after working with us for several years. This person had consistently been working incredible amounts of overtime and this had ended up costing our company often double what the person’s salary was. The person had formerly been in charge of a printing operation for our company and about a year and a half ago we shut down the printing operation. Due to this person’s longevity with the company and presumed loyalty, I made the decision to keep them on and find other things for them to do. The other work this person was given was not demanding and involved simple things like filing and running errands. Nevertheless, this person continued to work incredible amounts of overtime, despite being warned on several occasions not to do so. There was a time when this person was needed to work overtime when our printing operation was going a full bore. Nevertheless, this was no longer necessary and had not been for years. While I am not sure if I would call it a “sacrifice”, what we now were asking this person to do was to work a normal schedule in an effort to save their job. After months of warning this person about working overtime, we decided that the only solution was to put them on salary because, try as we might, the person would not stop working overtime. We calculated their hourly wage and one of our managers sat them down and told them we were putting them on salary going forward. Right on the spot, the person quit. A few hours later I received an email from the person telling me I was a horrible person and that I had stepped all over them by trying to limit their overtime. The person went so far as to say they felt sorry for my daughter because they thought I was a horrible person. This is an example of someone who was asked to make a sacrifice (not work overtime) and could not do it. The person is now unemployed and trying to get unemployment despite having quit their job. A simple sacrifice for this person was too much to make. In your job and in your career you are going to be called upon to make sacrifices. It is exceedingly important that you make sacrifices. All of my life I have been fascinated with success and what makes certain people more successful than others. As I have studied the most successful men and women out there I have seen that they have all made tremendous sacrifices in order to succeed. In order to do anything and be someone of great substance you need to learn how to sacrifice. One of the greatest causes of failure in life is the inability to make sacrifices. For example, many people spend every cent of money they make, go into debt, and never save money. The failure to save money results in them never being able to afford the sorts of material objects they would like. Saving money is a sacrifice. When children are growing up they learn early on that if they want to get good grades in school they are going to have to not play video games or be out playing and instead are going to have to sacrifice “fun time” for “serious time” and do their school work. Notwithstanding, many children simply fail to make this sacrifice and never learn how to do so. The children who do make the sacrifice and study may end up becoming doctors or lawyers, for example. The ones who never make this sacrifice, despite average or even excellent intelligence, may spend their lives moving from job to job in fast food restaurants, or do other things that are largely insignificant in terms of the impact they could end up having. In our careers and lives, the most important thing that we can do is constantly and consistently sacrifice so that we can achieve greater rewards. We must always be sacrificing in order to grow. We often also need to sacrifice to help other people. A 2004 article in the New York Times discusses the importance of sacrificing for another:

Matthew Berenguer’s parents sacrificed all they owned so he could get the one thing he could keep forever: an education. When his father lost his job, they lost their apartment. The family put everything in storage, and all seven of them lived in homeless shelters. If that was not hard enough, his parents had to decide how to spend what little money they had left: continue paying storage fees for their belongings or send Matthew to a summer program at Syracuse University. His parents chose his future over theirs. The storage company auctioned their belongings. Their beds and sofa? Gone. Their piano? Gone. His sketchbooks, which he filled with vivid pencil sketches during subway rides? Gone. His father’s library, which gave Matthew delicious moments of escape and education? Gone. Other families now have the bits and pieces of his life. But Matthew, who got his first taste of college life that summer, insists he got something far more precious. ”I was grateful we lost everything,” said Matthew, a senior at Rice High School in Manhattan, who hopes to attend Cornell University. ”I was very materialistic. This changed what my values were. I found out I still had my mother, my father, my family.” His parents’ sacrifices continue to pay off. Matthew is among this year’s winners of a New York Times College Scholarship, which will provide him with a $30,000 four-year scholarship, a summer job and a mentor. He and 19 other young people — some from countries around the world and others who never would have ventured much beyond the block — possess that wondrous mix of talent, determination and optimism that enabled them not only to overcome considerable obstacles, but also to thrive.

The power of sacrifice is something that can change lives and has huge meaning. I know there is meaning in the dead lamb killed on my front door. The situation is too coincidental and incredible for it to be otherwise. In thinking about this in a state of shock for the past few hours. I came upon a definition of the word “sacrifice” from Latin. In Latin the derivative of the word “sacrifice” is “sacred office”. “Sacred office” means to hold one’s work or mission sacred and close to one’s heart. Anything sacred requires that we hold it in deep reverence and respect. What is sacred is holy and divine. The message I want to bring to you and the message this brought to me is the importance of holding my work as holy and divine and others also holding their work holy and divine. Whether this was a message from God, I do not know. What I do know is that it has made me believe in the importance of our work and doing everything within my power to hold my work as the most important and sacred thing in the world. I have dedicated my career and life to getting people jobs and a lamb sacrificed on my front door step and a search for meaning in this has helped me realize the importance I place on my job. The final message has nothing whosoever to do with me. The final message is all about you. You need to hold your work sacred and divine. A job is sacred. The work you do is sacred. You need to take your job seriously and you need to take your career seriously. The more you put into it the more you will become. The more you appreciate something the better you will get at it. You need to remind yourself of this every single day because it is about the most important factor in who you will become. THE LESSON You must constantly be sacrificing in order to ensure advancement in your life. You will always be called upon to make sacrifices in your life and career, and you must do so in order to grow. Take your job and career seriously, and remember that the work you do is sacred. The more you appreciate your work, the better your will get at it.

• ‘‘Sure’‘
• ‘‘Yes.’‘
• ‘‘Go ahead.’‘
• ‘‘Please do it.’‘
• ‘‘You’re hired.’‘
• ‘‘Great.’‘
• ‘‘Excellent.’‘

I was always paid and I never spent more than 5 minutes at each house ‘‘selling‘‘ and ‘‘closing’‘ the homeowners. Since the product I was selling was my labor, and the stuff I put on the driveways cost only a few dollars per house, my profits were great no matter what I charged. I went from doing one or two houses on a street each year to doing virtually every single one of them. My business boomed and I am confident I became the largest residential asphalt sealing contractor in Michigan almost overnight. Each night I would come home and there would be so many checks in my mailbox the postman would have then banded together with rubber bands. None of this would have happened if I had not developed the ability to ‘‘close,’‘ push homeowners over the fence and turn them from casual snoopers into buyers. This is about the ability to ‘‘close’‘ and get the sale. In your business the most important ability you can have is the ability to ‘‘close’‘–without the ability to close very little is likely to happen. You will be on the sidelines and others will be hired instead of you. It is easy to get in the door anywhere. Getting in the door, however, is only 1% of the battle. The most difficult thing to do once you get in the door is to close the sale and move the employer from a ‘‘browser’‘ to a buyer. In a poor economy, the price of things typically starts coming down. The reason for this is that stores and other merchandisers are doing everything within their power to ‘‘close’‘ you and get you from someone who may not purchase something to someone who will. A short time ago a local Ford dealership in Los Angeles discounted a bunch of new Ford Mustangs by around 50% to move them out quickly. This gimmick works. When I drive down the street in Los Angeles these days I have been seeing people standing on corners promoting incredible going out of business sales at various businesses, offering 90% off of retail price in many cases. Low prices are a very effective tool for closing consumers. One of my favorite scenes in the movies that highlights the incredible importance of closing, is from the 1970s movie, Kramer v. Kramer. In the movie, the protagonist, Ted Kramer, is going through a divorce and is unemployed. He wants to get custody of his son, but his wife is about to tell the judge in an upcoming hearing that he is unemployed and she should be granted custody. Ted has to get a job immediately. He first goes to an employment agency and finds the only job available in the entire city, but the recruiter tells him that now is not a good time to set up an interview. Ted fights with the man in the employment agency and finally manages to coerce the man into setting up a very quick interview. Ted manages to get a few minutes with some hiring personnel while they are having a Christmas party on the Friday before Christmas. He goes into the interview and knows this is his one shot. Here is the dialogue from the movie script

91    INT. OUTER OFFICE, J. WALTER THOMPSON -          LATE AFTERNOON          The large room is crowded with secretaries, junior          executives, researchers, editors, ad-men, etc., etc.          They all have drinks in their hands and there is a good          deal of kissing and general conviviality going on.          THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH ACKERMAN as he steps out of his          office, closes the door behind him and makes his way          across the room to MR. SPENCER, the Advertising Director.          At the moment, Spencer stands with his coat over one          arm and a drink in his hand talking to a very pretty          young woman. Ackerman approaches him, whispers some-          thing in his ear. Spencer shakes his head and points          to his watch. Ackerman says something else and finally,          with a look of weary resignation, Spencer excuses him-          self from the pretty young woman and follows Ackerman          back to his office. THE CAMERA FOLLOWS THEM. As          Ackerman opens the door to his office, THE CAMERA IS          ANGLED so that we can SEE past them, into the office          where Ted stands waiting.                                ACKERMAN                          (as they enter)                    Mr. Spencer, Mr. Kramer.                                 SPENCER                         (not wasting any time)                    So you're the go-getter. All                    right, you've got ten minutes.          As the door closes behind them, blocking our view, THE          CAMERA PANS UP to a clock over the door. It reads          five-fifteen.                                                     MATCH DISSOLVE TO:    92    INT. ACKERMAN'S OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON          ON A CLOCK--which now reads five twenty-two. THE CAMERA          PULLS BACK TO REVEAL Spencer, now sitting in Ackerman's          chair, his feet on Ackerman's desk. Ted has just          finished his pitch.                                SPENCER                          (sipping his drink)                    That's very interesting, Mr.                    Kramer. I must say, it's very                    interesting. Let me think about                    it. I'll let Jack...                          (indicating Ackerman)                    ...know and he'll get in touch                    with you.          Spencer gets to his feet, starts to retrieve his coat.          ON TED--as he decides to take a gamble.                                TED                    Excuse me, I believe you said                    I had ten minutes.          ON SPENCER--almost at the door, looking around.                                SPENCER                    Well?          ON TED--checking his watch.                                TED                    That means I've got two minutes                    left. I understand you're paying                    twenty-five.          Spencer nods.                                TED                          (a deep breath, then                           a real huckster)                    All right, I'll tell you what                    I'm gonna do--I'll take the job                    at twenty-two-five. Now, that's                    twenty-five hundred less than                    you're offering. The only thing                    is, you have to say yes right                    now. Not tomorrow. Not next                    week. Not after the holidays.                    It's worth it to me for a                    yes right now and I'll take                    twenty-five hundred less.          There is a long beat of silence as Spencer and Ackerman          look at one another. They were clearly not prepared          for this.                                TED                          (watching them)                    Today only. One day only.                    Twenty-two five.                                SPENCER                    Mr. Kramer, can we talk privately                    for a moment?                                TED                    Certainly.                                                     CUT TO:    93    OUTER OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON          ON TED--as he steps out of Ackerman's office, sits down.          Now, all of the fear, all of the anxiety that he has          been fighting down comes welling up. What if he pushed          too hard? What will he do if he doesn't get a job?          If Ted Kramer could fall to his knees and pray, he          would.          CROSS-CUT WITH THE CHRISTMAS PARTY-- that swirls around          him. We notice in particular, one very pretty young          woman flirting with a number of men. She is wearing          a dress with straps, one of them has broken and she          has patched it with a piece of masking tape.          Finally the door to Ackerman's office opens and he          steps out.                                ACKERMAN                    Mr. Kramer?          Ted jumps to his feet, starts into the office.                                                     CUT TO:    94    INT. ACKERMAN'S OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON          ON SPENCER--He looks at Ted carefully for a long time,          then:                                SPENCER                          (grins)                    Welcome aboard, Mr. Kramer.          C.U. TED--There is an instant of relief, then, with          astounding cool:                                TED                    Well, gentlemen, I'm pleased                    to be with you.          ANOTHER ANGLE--as they shake hands, say their good-          byes. THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH TED as he makes his way          through the Christmas party that is still going strong.          Then, suddenly, as he passes the very pretty woman we          noticed earlier, he turns and kisses her.

This is one of my favorite scenes from the movie because it shows the absolute power of ‘‘closing’‘ in getting a job. In this particular example Ted used money to close. He also used the power of a deadline. This is similar to what I did in the asphalt business by telling the homeowners they had to make a decision ‘‘right now’‘ and not later. The ability to pressure people to make decision now, and not later, is one of the most important things you can do in ‘‘closing.’‘ However, it is not something that is always going to work in getting a job like it did with Ted. I would like to tell you a quick story about how I once hired someone and how this person ‘‘closed’‘ me to get a job. It is an unusual story but it is something that taps into something that I believe is one of the more powerful methods out there of ‘‘closing’‘ to get a job. I used to work in downtown Los Angeles and worked in a building called the Oviatt Building, which was directly across the street from the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The Los Angeles Athletic Club is a nice club, however, anyone can join for the most part. I believe at the time it cost $500 to join the club and then cost around $100 a month to keep your membership. This is in contrast to several other ‘‘downtown’‘ social clubs which could cost $30,000 or more to join and sometimes require years of evaluation and references from other members in order to be accepted. I was perfectly happy with the Los Angeles Athletic Club but the longer that I was around people in Los Angeles and got familiar with the scene downtown, the more I realized there was a giant pecking order among clubs. In fact, the people who were from the oldest families and the more prestigious people in terms of their professional accomplishments and so forth tended to belong to these more prestigious clubs. The situation was compounded by the fact that you had to be invited to the more prestigious clubs by a current member, then they introduced you to current members and then a board would vote on you after a certain length of time. One day I had been with a recruiter of ours from Texas and we had walked into one of the more prestigious clubs to see what it was like and how to join. We were kicked out of the club and they threatened to call the police since we had come in from off the street. It was at that point I realized that there was an entire subculture in my midst of extremely private and exclusive clubs in downtown Los Angeles. They were far different than the Los Angeles Athletic Club. One day I was interviewing a man a few years older than me for a position in our company and the interview ended about 5:00 pm. The man was from an old waspy sort of Los Angeles family and was pretty classy and well spoken in all respects. Generally, if an interview ended around 5:00 p.m. I would take someone out for drinks or to dinner, but on this occasion I simply asked the man if he had plans. He told me he was going to his club to exercise and I asked him which club. He informed me that it was the same club that I had been kicked out of with the recruiter from Texas just a few months previously. He then did something extremely smart: ‘‘Would you like to come to the club with me and have a look around?’‘ he asked. This is something I was definitely interested in. He took me to the club and then proceeded over the next few weeks to introduce me to other members. In the process, I ended up hiring him. While he was very qualified for the job I hired him for at the time, I am not sure if from an economic standpoint he was someone that made sense for me to hire. He was a great guy, but at that point the company simply was not at the level where it needed him. In retrospect, and this is a sad thing to say, I think a part of me hired him because I had a desire to belong to his group which I had been an outsider of previously. This brings me to you and ‘‘closing’‘ and getting a job. When someone is hiring you or making a decision about whether or not they should hire you, one of the things they are always asking themselves is ‘‘What’s In It For Me’‘–or WIFM. You need to look at getting hired and getting a job from your perspective, and from the perspective of the person who is doing the hiring. I once heard a well known copywriter, Ben Mack, say something along these lines. I wrote this down so these are probably not his exact words, but I wanted to share them with you because they are so powerful: People will follow you anywhere to the extent you encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies. For the past several years, a great deal of my time has been spent interviewing and working with the very best-educated attorneys throughout the United States. One of the things you will find in the resumes of attorneys who went to law school from the 1990s onward is that, if they went to most of the top 10 law schools, they generally have an extreme amount of liberalism in their background. By this I mean they are extremely liberal politically and were involved in very liberal organizations in college. They generally were the head of these liberal organizations. Why this is relevant is due to the fact that most of the administrators and admissions officers at top law schools around the United States are extremely liberal as well–I do not know why this is, but it just is. I know this because I have met most of them. It probably has something to do with the fact that a good portion of these admissions officers were student activists during Vietnam. If the admissions officers are young, their predecessors were probably activists during the 70s and hired their replacements based on having similar views. When these liberal admissions officers are making admissions decisions for top law schools they are faced with an overwhelming number of highly qualified applicants. Accordingly, they need to ‘‘look beyond the numbers’‘ when they are making admission decisions. What I believe happens is that they do everything they can to admit people who share their same ultra liberal views and this is what their ‘‘looking beyond the numbers’‘ means. Admitting ultra liberal students:

• Encourages their dreams of a liberal society
• Helps confirm their belief that social action is necessary
• Helps them ‘‘throw rocks’‘ at their conservative enemies.

These are the people who ultimately ‘‘get the job’‘ and get into many of the best law schools. This same thing also occurs at most top colleges throughout the United States. Admissions officers are seeking to admit the most liberal people they can among a pool of similarly highly qualified candidates. I once worked for a very conservative federal judge. Most of the people that he hired to work for him were also extremely conservative. I once worked in the office of a law firm where almost everyone was the Catholic religion. What ends up pushing many employers over the fence is a powerful group affiliation. Why does this occur and what does this mean for your job search? People who are offering you a job want to hire people who they believe are part of the same group as them and confirm the way they feel about the world. This is something that is incredibly important for your potential employers and they will be more likely to hire you, and you will be more likely to ‘‘push them over the fence’‘ and close the deal, if you are able to identify with a particular group or cause that is important to an employer. When I was in high school I remember being invited to a college to spend the night there as a prospective student. Something very strange happened when one of the hosts (who was a college student) came up to me and said: ‘‘You seem too white bread and boring. This school wants people with passion.’‘ Actually, I am the opposite, but I was acting very subdued because that is what I thought it was going to take to fit in. When you are yourself and have passion one way or another, that is something that often closes the deal. The student who told me I was ‘‘white bread’‘ was right in many respects because he was pointing out that the more normal we seem the less likely we are to influence people one way or another. Pushing an employer over the fence to make a hiring decision is no easy thing to do. There are a million closing techniques that I could write about, and a discussion over every closing technique could compose a 1,000 page book. I think you have the ability to close because we all do. Your ability is instinctual. What you need to do is tap into your instinctual closing ability and push employers over the fence to make them hire you. You need to push employers that little extra bit to ensure you get the job. Anyone can go out on an interview, but only the most talented can actually close the deal.

• They were not being paid enough
• They should be working for a larger company
• The company was poorly managed
• People had been screwed over by the company

His list of criticisms could fill several pages. What was most alarming about this particular person was the pattern we started to notice. The Underminer would often attempt to become friendly with our best employees. If any of them became friendly with this person, in a very short time, formerly enthusiastic employees would change right before our eyes. They would no longer be as enthusiastic about their work, stop completing assignments on time, get a “depressed” look and feel about them, and stop consistently showing up on time for work. If these employees were not fired, they would often quickly quit and leave the company. Sometimes the Underminer would affect the employee so negatively the person would quit and leave the company without having secured another job. In less than one year I noticed this pattern negatively affect the careers of at least 10 people. People who otherwise could have had excellent careers with our company left or were negatively influenced by this individual. This individual eventually was let go from our company and, incredibly, to this day is still trying to undermine our company and the people in it by spreading negative information. Am I upset by this? Am I hurt? Of course I am. However, you need to understand in every organization you will find people who try to undermine the company. The most alarming thing about the Underminer is the people this person approached and influenced are still floundering years later in their careers. They have moved from job to job and many are unemployed. Before learning to think negatively about work and the company, these people had been incredibly enthusiastic and talented. It was as if the Underminer had planted so much negativity in their impressionable young minds they were permanently affected. Over the years I have noticed patterns like this one repeat themselves in our company. Looking back, I’ve even seen this pattern repeat itself in law firms and other companies in which I have worked. It is often not just one person negatively influencing others, but several. What I am about to share with you could be some of the more important career advice you ever receive. You need to stay away from negative people inside companies. There is something called “guilt by association” that is easy to pick up and that can negatively affect you. If you are spending your time with people who are known as troublemakers or who are hostile towards the company, the implication is you may share these sorts of opinions as well. Once a company picks up on this and associates you with this behavior, you will be marked as someone who is not a friend of the company and is, instead, an enemy. When I was practicing law I saw many careers stalled and/or ruined in law firms because of the associations people made inside the office. When you associate with the wrong people a firm will view you as someone who is unlikely to be looking out for the firm and, consequently, will avoid promoting you, advancing you, or protecting you. Choosing to associate with the wrong people in the office will create huge problems for you. You are at work to make a living. Your job at work is to go there, be professional, and leave. You are not expected to go there to make friends or be a participant in various forms of gossip. You can choose to get involved in the social side of the office and watch your career stall, or you can choose to be removed from it. Not all social activity in companies is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. However, you want to be removed from the social side of the office because you cannot be viewed as a supervisor by people with whom you’re friends. The further away you are from people in the office socially, the closer you are to being their manager. In addition, the closer you are to colleagues in the office, the more you are going to be affected by their negative behavior. None of this is to say you can’t be friendly with your co-workers. You need to be friendly with everyone in your company. However, you cannot become too chummy and you do not want to participate in the social network of the office too much. When I was in high school, one of my best friends got into serious trouble. He was on his way to lacrosse practice and was eating a giant bag of candy while sitting in the passenger seat of a car. He asked a couple of kids walking by if they wanted some of his candy because he noticed they were looking at him. The kids screamed and ran. My friend thought the whole thing was very strange (although he realized they may have misinterpreted this as a kidnapping attempt) until a SWAT team began fanning out on the practice field where we were playing lacrosse and threw his face in the dirt and arrested him. The entire thing had been a giant misunderstanding; however, the misunderstanding was serious enough he was suspended from school for three months. He would have been kicked out if his father was not an extremely influential person in Detroit who donated a lot of money to the school. During my last year of high school I asked my math teacher to write a recommendation for me for colleges and he agreed to do so. This math teacher had been very close to the parents of the children who had mistakenly believed they were about to be kidnapped. There were two sides to my friend’s scandal. One side thought the arrest was ridiculous because the offer of candy was genuine and there had been no kidnapping attempt at all. There had been other passengers in the car and they all testified the candy offer was legitimate. The other side thought the mere words were evil and my friend should be expelled. A few months after my teacher wrote the recommendations for me I was interviewing at a college, and the interviewer said to me, “What’s the problem with this math teacher? Why did he write such a horrible recommendation for you? It is so bad and there is so little substance to it we were actually going to call your school about it.” I think the math teacher may have gotten in trouble for the recommendation. He sought me out and apologized and one of the deans of the school took me into a meeting and told me the reason he had written the recommendation the way he did was because I had been friends with the kid who was suspended. The teacher actually withdrew his previous recommendation and wrote another. It was a strange episode. In fact, I do not think I ever spoke to my parents or anyone about it. Now that I am thinking about this I am wondering if this had an impact on the colleges I did and did not get into. The more I think about this the more I believe that it probably did. You need to realize guilt by association can hurt you with companies and other organizations. You also need to realize it is incredibly important you keep your distance from people in the workplace if you want to be considered for supervisory and other such roles. The social side of the office can be a great deal of fun and can also be entertaining. More often than not, however, the social side of the office will cause you far more problems than it is worth.

• When I get a promotion everything will be better.
• I will be happy when I do not have to work anymore and am retired.
• I need to be in a different relationship because this one does not make me happy.
• I need a new job and I will be happy in the next one.

In my line of work I see people who have been moving between one job and another for their entire career. It is a chronic situation. They will start a job and like it for some time, deciding that the job makes them happy. Within six months or so, however, they find reasons to not like the job and to become very unhappy with the work. At that point they spend the next several months telling those around them why they do not like the job, looking at job openings and planning their escape into something else. It is like the cars, houses, romance novels, and everything else… Everyone is always escaping, or planning their escape and trying to live another life. Are you planning an escape? Well if you are planning an escape and seeking a new life, the chances are great that you are never going to find it in the way you are going about it. I read recently that the talk show host Larry King has been married eight different times to seven different women. What do you think he is seeking? He must be seeking something because I am sure it is a lot of work to be married (and divorced) that many times. The doctor who purchases a different car every few months, the person who chronically switches jobs, the person who moves between numerous relationships and marriages, the woman who reads romance novels every single night, the person who switches houses all the time: They are all seeking a different life. But here is the secret: These people seeking a different life are all going about it the wrong way. They are using objects and circumstances outside of themselves to feel complete. This makes no sense and the exhilaration they attain can never last. Happiness and being complete need to come from within and not from without. You need to find who you are inside of yourself and not outside of yourself. Once you understand this, you will not need to manipulate the world and circumstances around you because everything you do will come from within. A year or so after purchasing that big house with the big yard, I moved into a much smaller house with a smaller yard. The house I had bought was really way too big and it made no sense. I no longer cared about the yard or the size of the house because I realized that I had a happy and stable family. The house could not bring me that; the happiness I sought came from within and was all around me. Now I do not think about changing houses any longer. When I was practicing law, I did not like the fact that I could be fired at any moment. This scared the hell out of me because I saw a lot of people I worked with get fired. I was always planning my escape before I got fired too. Always thinking about the next job. What I really wanted however, was a job with security, wherein I would have more control over what happened to me. It took stopping the practice of law to get this. When I bought my Porsche I wanted to feel like I was a cool and stud guy. Now I can feel this way no matter what I drive. My car does not give me this feeling; it has to come from within. Your decisions need to be grounded in reality and you need to be the person you really want to be. The guy purchasing all the cars needs to be James Bond instead of a dentist if this is what would make him truly happy. The woman who has let herself go needs to get herself together and be the woman in the romance novels if this is what will bring her a fulfilling life. The man changing wives every few years, probably enjoys the thrill of the chase, and feeling loved, and validated; he needs to be in a relationship where he always feels loved and validated. In your life the most important thing you can do is become the person you are trying to be, instead of trying to get a different life through things, people, and circumstances outside of yourself. I know you want a different life. Most people do. If this is really what you want then you need to go out there and get that life. You can achieve your dreams; just remember to look within yourself first, in order to assess what is truly important to you and your happiness. Article Author : Harrison Barnes

• He may be successful, but he is immoral and he probably cheats on his wife.
• She may have done well, but she is really very unhappy deep down.
• They may be famous, but they are actually really screwed up.

In virtually every incident where I have heard these sorts of statements, they are being made by people who were once peers of someone who ended up becoming extremely successful. The more successful I have become in my own life, the more people who were once close to me and my former peers have made statements like this about me. A few years ago, a bunch of statements similar to these started appearing about me on the Internet, and I was very shocked. Since the attacks were so in-depth, untrue, and personal in nature, I hired a lawyer to find out who it was. It turned out it was a former employee of mine who had gone to school with a bunch of my college friends. At one time he had been my peer, but I had long ago surpassed him.  This was someone whom I never would have suspected was so envious. The person had not worked for me in more than five years and yet had gone on an underground and anonymous vendetta—using fake names on message boards and so forth–due to his feelings of envy. This is the power of envy. If others become envious of you, they will attack in underhanded and anonymous ways and may lie in wait for years. When I first started practicing law, at the age of 26, I had recently sold an asphalt business and bought myself one of the most expensive Porsche’s I could find. The car was flashy, drove fast, drew lots of attention, and stood out. I thought having the car was a great thing and I figured I was entitled to and deserved such a great car. One of my first days in the office, an attorney I worked with who was very well known (and rumored to make at least a few million dollars a year), pulled up next to me in the parking lot in a late-model Toyota—a car probably not worth much more than $10,000.  I was surprised.  Why would such a successful attorney be driving around in such an old car? At the time I did not understand that he was playing the same game Buffet, Walton, Bezos, and others play: he was doing his best not to attract envy. In fact, most of the successful attorneys I was working with drove inexpensive cars. It was almost as if there were an unwritten agreement for attorneys to drive cars that were bland and ordinary. Moreover, many of the attorneys also did not live as well as you might expect them to and dressed in ordinary and inexpensive clothes. When I joined my second law firm, my boss did extremely well financially. Yet he drove a ten-year-old Mazda Miata and made sure to always fly coach when he traveled. I could list numerous examples like this of the lengths that people go to in an attempt to not attract envy. It is easy to draw inferences about successful people who drive inexpensive cars–these are concrete examples that show they do not want to inspire envy. Instead, they want to fit in and not be showy. The cost of drawing the envy of others is greater than any enjoyment they might get from driving around in a nice car. These men make displays of how much they are like everyone else, rather than how much money they make. Whether it is because you have gotten a promotion, a raise—or some other symbol of success–every achievement you earn will likely attract the envy of those around you. To ensure that you do not create more problems for yourself than necessary, the best thing you can do is to emphasize that you’re just like everyone else. When you talk to people, it is not a bad idea to downplay your success. Being self-deprecating also goes a long way with people. This can help deflect their envy. I know several people whom I would estimate are worth in excess of $100 million. When I speak with these people, they are constantly downplaying their strengths and always bringing up their weaknesses. They will never tell you that business is good. They will never brag. Moreover, they will go out of their way to make sure you understand all of the problems they are having in their lives–personal, financial, social, and others. They are distracting you from focusing on their power and strengths, and ensuring that you do not become envious of them. Successful people do not want to be envied by others. For many, the last thing they want is to draw attention to themselves as being above or better than those around them. They know that if people are envious of them, this envy will stew within people and these people will eventually try to undermine them in ways that they cannot  predict. The more important thing is actually having power and success and not that others think you have it. It is important to recognize envy in others. Many times this envy can take the form of lots of small criticisms. Other times it can be a look you notice. At still other times, the envy might be evident through false praise. Suddenly someone appears in your life offering compliments and flattery for everything you do. This false praise comes from someone who wants to achieve what you have and maybe wants to replace you. These people can be quite dangerous and need to be avoided because their objective is generally to surpass you, and doing so often requires that they hurt you in some way. For the past ten years, I have operated a legal recruiting firm. In this job, I hire attorneys with good pedigrees to do recruiting. Several times during the course of operating this business, various recruiters have approached me for aggressive mentoring—acting as if they wanted to be close friends. Many called me on the phone every day and chatted about the job. Others came and stayed with me for an extended period of time. In almost every instance, these people watched everything I did very closely and were always ready with praise for one thing or another that I was doing. I can say almost unequivocally that the people who praised me the most were the most dangerous. Each and every one of them ended up quitting without notice and establishing competing businesses. In several cases, I learned that they had been stealing from the company while they were employed. They were the last people I ever expected to quit or steal. I had been blinded by their praise and flattery. The most dangerous people in our careers are those we allow to envy us. To deflect this envy, people employ all sorts of methods. Several years ago, I spent some time with a man and his family who have a giant horse ranch of hundreds of acres overlooking the ocean in Malibu. The man had a somewhat successful business but had inherited a great deal of money from his father, who was a famous performer, and still received giant royalty checks each month from his father’s estate. The property is spectacular and certainly worth tens of millions of dollars. “This would be a great place for you to have a company party!” I told him one day. He suddenly turned very serious. “Are you out of your mind? The last thing in the world I would ever want to do is have a company party here. You cannot imagine how many problems that would cause for me at work.” If people envy you they will put obstacles in your path. I know a guy who thinks he is cool because he drives nothing but Ferraris (he collects them and they are almost all red). He has been stopped for negligible speeding (5-10 miles an hour over the speed limit) more times than he could remember. Eventually, after a series of these small tickets, he lost his license. Then, after losing his license, he kept driving and was pulled over and taken to jail. Now he has a criminal record for being “busted” for the serious crime of driving 5 miles an hour over the speed limit too many times. He also pays incredible insurance rates. Do you think he would have been stopped so much for minor speeding infractions if he were driving a Chevrolet compact car? I seriously doubt it. He was stopped because he was attracting unnecessary attention to himself and drawing the envy of the police. “I’ll show him!” I’m sure the police thought each time they stopped him. And they did. They chipped away at him with small ticket after small ticket until he wound up losing his license. That is the power of envy. If you get pleasure out of making others feel inferior to you, then you have a serious problem you need to fix. When something good happens to you, don’t go bragging about it to your peers or anyone else. If you arouse sufficient envy, they may exclude you socially, undermine you professionally, and create all sorts of problems for you that you never see coming. To advance in your career, it is important that you do your best to avoid the envy of others. It is paradoxical that in order to remain powerful, you need to appear less powerful than you are. By avoiding envy, you put yourself in a situation where you are more likely to succeed. If you avoid envy, you can compete more effectively in the world. THE LESSON Avoid the envy of others. Successful individuals know envy can lead others to undermine them; in order to remain powerful, you must paradoxically minimize the appearance of power. Avoiding envy will put you in a much better position to succeed and effectively compete.

“Well-controlled adoption studies done in France have found that transferring an infant from a family having low socioeconomic status (SES) to a home where parents have high SES improves childhood IQ scores by 12 to 16 points or about one standard deviation, which is considered a large effect size in psychological research. … The malleability of intelligence is not constrained by heritability.” (p. 76, Wahlsten, D., in B. Devlin, S.E. Fienberg., & K. Roeder. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve. New York: 1997).

There are also numerous other studies that show the effect of environment on IQ, success, and other areas of people’s lives. Personally, I believe that it is next to impossible that our environment and the people that we live with, work with, and associate with can have anything less than a major impact on what ends up happening to us and the people we become. It would be incorrect to claim that a good environment has little impact on how successful we ultimately end up becoming. Your career and your life will be largely determined by the environment you operate in. You need to seek out environments that support your becoming the person you want to be and the person you believe you can become. A strong environment can make all the difference. Put yourself in the most demanding work environments and you will likely develop a great number of skills you would not otherwise develop. Work around the smartest and most ambitious people and you too will likely become smarter and more ambitious. Your environment will shape you far more than you may realize. Your environment comes down to where you live, the people you associate with, where you work, and more. When I picked a place in Las Vegas, I made a mistake that many of us make. I picked a place that had the best view and was the best deal. I did not consider the environment. I was blinded by things other than the environment. The environment I am in is so bad that every time I leave the confines of the condominium I am reminded of the mistake I made. We lose sight of the environments of the jobs we choose as well. We may choose a job that has the best salary. We may choose a job that has the best commute. We may choose an employer that has the best brand. We may choose a job that has the best benefits or vacation policy. We choose places to work for all sorts of reasons; however, ultimately it is the environment and people we will be around every day that is the most important. We need to be focused on the environment in addition to all of the other things. It is the environment that will ultimately determine our happiness and shape who we become. THE LESSON Your environment ultimately shapes who you are, so you need to seek out environments that will help shape you into the person you wish to be. People choose their jobs based on all sorts of factors, but often overlook the environment itself. The environment and people that surround you every day, however, ultimately determine your happiness and shape your future.