The Most Important Person You Communicate With is Yourself

“The mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven”

-John Milton

Several years ago, I was home after graduating from college and I met a guy who was friends with my girlfriend’s brother. He had graduated from Yale University a year or two before and was driving a truck all around Detroit delivering meat to restaurants. He typically drove this meat truck from 4:00am until noon each day. He got paid in cash at the end of each day by his boss. He had been the first person from the public school he had attended to go to Yale in [Read more]

The Magic Asphalt Sealer Tank

When I was in college, my girlfriend had the annoying habit of periodically declaring that the dorms were too noisy for her to sleep. What this really meant to me was that she had decided it was time for me to drive her to an industrial part of town so we could spend the night at a Holiday Inn Express, or a similar hotel. Once we got to the hotel, we would watch HBO on television and go out to eat at Denny’s. Since she never really studied much–or at all, the event would invariably result in an argument of [Read more]

Don’t Be Persuaded by Others Who Tell You How to Do Your Job Search

Several years ago, I was sitting at my desk when my secretary ran into my office. She told me the career services dean of a major American law school was on the telephone, demanding to speak with me, and that she was extremely angry. I took the call and the dean yelled at me for several minutes. She was angry about a letter I’d sent telling her I wanted to help her students with a service called Legal Authority, which assists law students and attorneys in getting jobs by doing mass mailings of their résumés to employers [Read more]

The Holidays Are the Best Time to Search for a Job

If you are serious about finding a job, it is entirely possible that your search may extend into the holiday season. To many people, conducting a job search during the holidays may seem like a bad idea. After all, employers have other things on their minds during the holidays, right? The last thing they are thinking about is hiring. I disagree with this rationale. In fact, I believe the best time to look for a job is during the holidays. If you could pick the perfect time to look for a job, I would say the holidays are it. There are [Read more]

Add Value at Every Turn

At the start of my career in the employment industry, I worked primarily with attorneys who’d come from some of America’s top law firms, and who were seeking the highest-paying jobs at the best firms. In working with these individuals, many of whom held top credentials from prestigious law schools, I very quickly identified two types of people: (1) people who worked hard to get where they were, and who would continue to do so because of their work ethic, and (2) people who believed that, because of what they’d already achieved – admission to a top school, securing a job in a top law firm – they were owed success. Over the years I became very astute at identifying these different types of people. Generally, people who feel they’re owed success often act as though they don’t need to impress their superiors, or work as hard. Their careers tend to be marginal and organizations [Read more]

Are You More Interested in the Intangible or the Tangible?

Several years ago, I started a business called Law Firm Staff, which is a staffing business for attorneys, paralegals, and so forth. Because it was a relatively new business and I had hired a manager, I felt that it was extremely important that the business had a strong self-concept and was well branded. At the time, our other companies were going gangbusters, and I solicited bids from various “branding agencies” that would help us to come up with various concepts for branding our business in the eyes of customers. When the bids started coming in, I realized [Read more]

Are You Visual, Auditory–or Kinesthetic?

You have probably heard before that people tend to be visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. In my experience, this is true and it is something you can generally pick up on within just a few minutes of meeting the average person. Understanding whether or not you are one or the other is something that can help you understand what sort of work you should be doing, the sorts of people you should be working with, the people you should be spending your time with, and the type of environment that will make you happy. In addition, you will make decisions and [Read more]

Seven Reasons People Never Have the Successful Careers They Are Capable of

A lawyer told me last night that most of the other attorneys she knows are looking to do something other than practice law. Lawyers are one of the most fascinating breeds of people I know. The ones who go to the top law schools and start in jobs with the top law firms generally have been performing at a very high level for their entire lives; however, when they get out in the real world, a good proportion of these attorneys fail to have fulfilling and successful long-term careers. What this has taught me is that no matter how smart we are, how talented we [Read more]

Character-Building Thought Power

In his book, Character-Building Thought Power, Ralph Waldo Trine draws a clear distinction between good and bad habits. In the process he raises questions as to whether we have control over habit forming and character building, or is it just a matter of chance? This book is extremely thought provoking and a “must-read.” Enjoy it.

–Harrison

Character-Building Thought Power By Ralph Waldo Trine The Book

UNCONSCIOUSLY we are forming habits every moment of our lives. Some are habits of a desirable nature; some are those of a most undesirable nature. Some, though not so bad in [Read more]

Managers, Idea People, and Workers

I love watching Westerns. What fascinates me about them is that what typically occurs in these movies occurs in any organization–and the success of this process is what determines the success or failure of the organization. In most Westerns, the plot line revolves around a powerful force that tests the will of a group, such as an evil banker taking away people’s land, or a group of outlaws terrorizing a town, and so forth. The beginning of the story typically entails people being devastated by this evil force, and then an individual steps forward and says something [Read more]

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