Narcissistic Entitlement Syndrome

The word “narcissism” comes from the Greek character Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and was made famous by the Greek poet Ovid. The story is one of great psychological complexity. In the story, Echo falls in love with Narcissus and gets rejected. The story makes it clear that Narcissus is only able to love himself and not others. Conversely, Echo completely loses herself in her love for Narcissus and has no sense of self at all. At the end of the story, Narcissus tells Echo, “I would die before I would give you power over me,” [Read more]

How You Handle Chaos Will Determine Your Success Or Failure

Yesterday I received a telephone call at 9:00 am from an employee who had been working for a recruiting company of ours for less than 72 hours and was giving notice before boarding an airplane.  We had brought this particular employee out to work for us from another city and were training her in Pasadena before she fled home to the city she is from. During this employee’s 72 hours with the company, she witnessed numerous changes we were forcing ourselves to go through.  One of our largest businesses was formerly a student loan company.  Despite the fact that the number of loans we are doing is down 98% from this time last year due to the difficulty of making loans in this economic climate, we still had some employees unnecessarily on the payroll in the hope that things would pick up.  We were in the process of letting some of them go.  This new person was witness to much of the chaos these remaining layoffs in this business have created in our company. While we are understandably doing fantastically well in [Read more]

Upgrade Your Career and Life by Finding Work to Be Done

Several years ago I decided that I did not want to work in a law firm any more. The problem was that I did not know what else I could do besides practice law. Also, I did not have any money.  In order to continue to make a living, I needed to do something that is among the most important skills we can have: I needed to create work for myself.  I have written extensively about the importance of creating work before, because without the ability to create work for yourself you might as well settle for a life of mediocrity.  The more work you know how to create, the better off you are going to be. If you know how to create work for yourself, you will never be unemployed or without excitement in your life.  Everything that happens in this world comes about through the ability of us to use our minds to create work.  One of my favorite motivational writers is Wallace D. Wattles.  In The Science of Getting Rich Wattles writes:

No one is kept in poverty by shortness in the supply of riches; there is more than enough for all.  A palace as large as the capital in Washington might be built for every family on earth from the building material in the United States alone; and under intensive cultivation, this country would produce wool, cotton, linen, and silk enough to clothe each person in the world finer than Soloman was arrayed in all his glory; together with food enough to feed them all luxuriously. The visible supply is practically inexhaustible; and the invisible supply really IS inexhaustible.  Everything you need on earth really is made from one original substance, out of which all things proceed.  New forms are constantly being made, and older ones are dissolving; but all shapes are assumed by One Thing.  There is no limit to the supply of Formless Stuff, or Original Substance.  The universe is made out of it; but it was not all used in making the universe.  The spaces in, through, and between the forms of the visible universe are permeated and filled with the Original Substance; with the formless Stuff, with the raw material of all things.  Ten thousand times as much stuff as has been made might still be made, and even then we should not have exhausted the supply of universal raw material. No man, therefore, is poor because nature is poor, or because there is not enough to go around.  Nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of riches; the supply will never run short.  Original substance is alive with creative energy, and is constantly producing more forms.  When the supply of building material is exhausted, more will be produced; when the soil is exhausted so that foodstuffs and materials for Clothing will no longer grow upon it, it will be renewed or more soil will be made.  When all the gold and silver has been dug from the earth, if man is still in such a stage of development that he needs gold and silver, more will be produced from the Formless.  The Formless Stuff responds to the needs of man; it will not let him be without any good thing. This is true collectively; the race as a whole is always abundantly rich, and if individuals are poor, it is because they do not follow the Certain Way of doing things which makes the individual man rich.  The Formless Stuff is intelligent; it is stuff which thinks.  It is alive, and is always impelled towards life.

Wattles’ writings are somewhat abstract; however, the point is that there is unlimited wealth and unlimited opportunity out there for you.  People can create great wealth and opportunity for themselves from nothing.  You too need to do the same thing with your life and career. I am amazed when I look around me and see how incredible certain people are [Read more]

Do Not Be Vengeful: Let Hurt and Anger Go Through You

He who conquers the mind, conquers the world.    -Guru Nanak Dev

In today’s economy, a lot of people are losing their jobs.  People are being fired and let go from companies at an alarming rate.  There is a huge sense of betrayal people feel when they lose a job.  People are incredibly angry at their employers and often life itself.  There is also a tendency for people who feel they have been wronged to want to “lash out” at their employers who have fired them.  Many of these people become angry, not just at the employer where they have lost their job, but at all employers.  They take on [Read more]

Carrot Peelers, Sales, Personality and Your Job Search

A couple of years ago, I started seeing a bunch of articles in Vanity Fair,the New York Times, The Village Voice and other publications about a guy named Joe Andes. Here is a portion of one profile of him from the May 2006 Vanity Fair:

In the early 90s a man named Joe Andes began showing up in the bar at the Pierre, Manhattan’s famously posh hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 61st Street. Joe liked the crowd at the Café Pierre, but the real draw for him was Kathleen Landis, the dimpled, piano-playing house chanteuse who still entertains there five nights a week. Joe was a five-nights-a-week man as well, always seated at the same round table with a front view of the baby grand and a back view of Landis. He drank only champagne, and never alone. His usual brand was Veuve Clicquot. On most nights he casually ordered a bottle, which always appeared with two champagne glasses—one for himself, the other for Landis.

Even by the standards of café society, Joe cut a noticeably soigné figure in his classic, British-made Chester Barrie suits and bold shirts and ties from Turnbull & Asser. The clothes went well with his English accent and late-period Sean Connery salt-and-pepper beard. He looked so distinguished and was so free with the bubbly that the Café Pierre crowd, Landis included, at first had him pegged as one of the “owners”—the tycoons who actually live at the Pierre in stupendously high-end co-op apartments.

The Café Pierre was way off about Joe, or so it decided after some probing. If no one was brave enough to ask him where he lived, quite a few people asked him what he did for a living.

Holding his glass of champagne by the stem, Joe would say simply, “I sell potato peelers.”

The probers had a good chuckle over that. “Right,” they all said. “Now pull the other one.”

… Joe pushes his gear through the streets on a hand truck, which he in his English way calls a trolley. He and the trolley are often stopped by strangers ready with a heartfelt line: “Sir, you’re the greatest salesman in New York!”

The reason so many magazines and publications were paying so much attention to Joe was because he is someone who was able to make a great living selling carrot peelers on the street. When Joe died a few years later, publications all around the world ran obituaries about him. The idea that someone could live in a giant apartment on Park Avenue, dine in the finest restaurants, and do all of this while selling carrot peelers on the street seemed to be something that was unusual to many people. There is nothing unusual about Joe at all. In fact, I am about to tell you what Joe knew that 99% of all job seekers and people out there do not know. It is easy to be like Joe if you know what you are doing. I want to tell you one of the most powerful and fun job search and employment strategies you will even learn. In fact, this is an extremely simple lesson and it is something almost no one ever learns. I have no idea why people do not do this because it can make a gigantic difference in their career and job search. If you understand this secret, you can dine in the finest restaurants and [Read more]

Alpha Pygmy Goats, Unreasonably Optimistic Russian Attorneys and Setting High Expectations for Yourself

I used to be a law professor, and I remember in my class there was the nicest kid you can imagine who had immigrated from Russia a few years previously and wanted to be an attorney.  He hardly spoke English and had a difficult time putting sentences together, however, none of this appeared to matter.  He was always the first guy who arrived in class each day and always stayed after to ask questions.  During class, he took notes and wrote furiously.  He sat in the front row and appeared to believe that he was going to be the greatest attorney of all time.  He wore a suit to class each day and other kids were showing up to class in shorts, tee shirts and flip flops.  All of the kids in the class liked him a lot, and they respected him a lot. Each day after class, he would approach me and ask me questions about ridiculously prestigious law firms and whether or not I thought he could get a job with these firms.  I never had the heart to tell him that it would be impossible for him to get a job with most of these law firms due to where he was attending law school and his ability to speak English.  He did not seem to care, however.  For as long as I could take it each day, he would sit there and question me about various law firms and then, from time to time, also ask me questions about the material. When the semester was over, I continued to hear from [Read more]

How to Manage Crisis

One of the scariest things for any of us is when we are in crisis.  A crisis can be defined a lot of ways.  It can be:

• the loss of a job.
• a divorce.
• a traumatic injury.
• a death.
• the alienation of a loved one due to a fight or disagreement.
• a severe illness.
• or even your own impending death.

Crisis is absolutely one of the most challenging things that we face, and when many people are in crisis they simply cannot cope and therefore fall apart. The key to managing any crisis is to look towards the future while you’re inside the crisis.  You [Read more]

Your Job is About the Transference Energy

A few years ago I was in India and was interested in going to see what is called ‘‘an energy healer’’. I was interested in this because I had been to several seminars where I had heard about people changing outcomes and healing others with energy by transferring energy from the universe. I went to see a Reiki energy healer and they did something called ‘‘balance my Chakras’’. This was an experience in itself, but the real knowledge I got out of energy and its place in our lives between people happened when I was sitting in the lobby waiting [Read more]

You Need to Be Able to Close

The ability to ‘‘close’‘ and get the sale is the most important skill in selling. It is something that few people know how to do. Many people can get a consumer, an employer, or others to the cusp of making a purchasing or hiring decision; however, it is the final ‘‘push’‘ that makes all of the difference. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to sell yourself and get a job. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to go from someone who a potential employer will consider for the job to someone who is hired. Your job in getting hired, in getting a better job and when looking for a job, is to push the employer over the fence and make them hire you. This is all there is to it. You need to get hired. There is nothing wrong with developing the skills of a master salesperson and ‘‘closer’‘ in order to get the best job you can. The desire to get a good job and ‘‘close’‘ the deal is a desire for employment, which leads to a richer and more abundant life and the desire to better yourself is praiseworthy. If you do not desire to have a better job or to find a job when you are unemployed, you are not living up to your full potential. It is absolutely essential that you give your best efforts to ‘‘closing’‘ and getting [Read more]

Winning in Your Job Search and Life Means Going Forward No Matter What Criticism You Think You May Receive

Every day when I sit down to work in the morning and turn on my computer, I generally receive several emails and comments about the companies I am running and also, for what it is worth, me personally.

• Some people will write me an email telling me I am the stupidest person they have ever encountered.
• Other people will say something very positive and will tell me how something I have done has benefited them and thank me for this.
• Some people will write me an email telling me they hate a company I am running.
• Some people will write and enclose pictures of their family and tell me I have changed their lives through something one of my companies has done.
• Some people will post a comment on one of our websites saying they love a company I am running.
• Some people will write me psychotic emails that insult me and my family.
• Other people will write emails telling me that the advice I have given them helped their family.

In addition to stuff that appears simply on my desk, out in the world the same thing is occurring. There are people who are going onto forums and talking about how much they love me [Read more]

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