• The people who succeed at the highest levels are typically (1) contributing something of real value to the world–a service or product that people want, and (2) part of a group that is also contributing something of real value to the world.
• People who do not succeed are generally (1) not contributing something of real value to the world that the world wants, and (2) part of a group that is also not contributing something of real value to the world.

The equation is as simple as this. If you want to be successful in the world and in your career, you need to understand these principles. Once you understand them you can do quite well in whatever you choose to do. To Succeed You Must Contribute Something of Value that the World Wants. Our company has been in located in Pasadena, California, for almost ten years. For about as long as I can remember, there has been a woman who has stood by the freeway exit ramp and held up a sign about how she is starving, out of work, or something of the sort. When I first noticed her at least five years ago, the woman appeared very pale and white and she always wore big sun hats. Now, after so many years of standing directly out in the sun every day she no longer looks Caucasian. The sun has changed the color of her skin permanently and she now looks all leathery. There are other beggars who are on opposite sides of the freeway exit; however, the side of the freeway exit ramp where this woman works appears to have always been hers. My questions are this: What is this woman contributing of value to the world? She may be allowing some people getting off of the exit ramp to feel good about themselves by giving her money–I do not know. But she has a steady job and has been doing this job for at least five or so years that I know of. She reports to work every day and is always there, throughout each day. But this woman is not contributing something of real value to people –at least not to a high enough level that will ever get her off that street corner. Whatever it is she is achieving, it is not much and will never be much. I wonder:

• What if this woman got a job as a mobile billboard on the corner? She could hold signs and get paid to direct traffic to a furniture store going out of business, or a condominium having a giant sale. She could do something essentially the same, but contribute a bit more value in the process. She might make a better living doing this.
• Or, consider if this woman cleaned herself up a bit and decided that she would apply to work in a fast food restaurant. She could get a job serving people throughout the day. She would have the ability to get raises, be able to work indoors (shielded from the skin damaging sun), get health insurance, and contribute something that society would probably view as more valuable.
• Similarly, she might get a job doing telemarketing. This woman obviously developed a real skill at talking to passing cars and getting people to give her money with nothing expected in return. Imagine, if she had a real product to sell, she could make phone calls and probably sell a lot of this or that. This would be even more of a contribution to the world.

The higher you move up the food chain in the working world, the more likely it is that you are contributing something of real value to society. People who generally get paid a lot of money are paid a lot of money because they are contributing something of real value. The more value you can create, the more you will generally be paid, and the less likely it is that you will ever lose your job. The money someone earns simply represents a measurement of what the person has delivered. As soon as someone ceases to provide a valuable service, the person will start receiving less money. If someone’s income is low, it is generally a fact that the person is not producing a very valuable service. People who are paid the most provide the most valuable services and provide the most of this valuable service. Many people inside of organizations may not understand why these people are paid so well; however, whether a person is providing a product or a service, in terms of what the person produces, their success is directly proportional to what quality and how much he or she is able to produce. To Succeed You Must Be Part of a Group that is Contributing Something of Real Value to the World–a Service or Product that People Want. Despite your best intentions and despite how hard you may work, there is always a danger that you will be part of a group that is not contributing something of real value to the world. The combined services of everyone inside of an organization also create value. It is generally the combined services of everyone–not just one individual, which creates value and efficient production. Accordingly, the members of the group will be paid relative to their overall contributions to the group. When you see a group of people who are failing, when the organization is failing and laying people off, when there are general problems with the people inside of the organization, typically the root of the problem lies in the organization’s failure to create something of real value to the world. When the organization as a whole is able to create something that the world wants, the organization generally succeeds. Consider, again, the case of the woman who has been begging on the street corner in Pasadena for the past several years. As I mentioned above, there are several other beggars on the same corner who beg and ask drivers and passersby for money. If all of these beggars got together and pooled their money at the end of each day, there might be some benefit to the overall group. For example, certain intersections might be busier at different times of the week, month and year than others. There is a mall in Pasadena and the intersection going towards the mall gets really busy around Christmas and slower in other months. If the beggars all got together and divided up the money each day, it might raise the average wage of the overall group of beggars operating in this vicinity. However, as discussed above, the product that these beggars are offering is not something that people are particularly enthusiastic about.

• If they were, instead, selling cold water in the summer, they would probably all make more money.
• If they were organized together in a fast food restaurant selling hamburgers, they would make even more money.
• If they all had law degrees and decided to all get together and organize a law firm, they would probably all make more money.

The more organized and efficient this group could get, the better off they would do collectively and individually. For the past several months I have been thinking about another particular example, and puzzling over it in many different ways. It is a very significant example and there is a lot more depth to it than it may first appear. Our company has an office in Orange County, California, and around six months ago we had two offices there. One of the offices was very small and located in an extremely expensive building in Newport Beach. Newport Beach is a very expensive area; it costs a ton of money to run a business there. It also costs a lot of money to live there. The people that live in Newport Beach typically must figure out ways to make a lot of money. A few years ago when the real estate market was doing well, the people in our expensive office in Newport Beach all seemed to be mortgage brokers and were doing all sorts of other businesses related to the real estate industry. They were all making loads of money doing this. Then, when the real estate market crashed, almost overnight it seemed all these same people went into businesses like credit counseling, debt consolidation, buying and selling distressed debt and other services. They did so in a matter of weeks. All of these groups of people in this ultra expensive office simply shifted gears and went into a different business where there was demand. They did not sit around trying to offer a real estate service that people were simply no longer interested in. Instead, they just all morphed into businesses where there was demand. From the standpoint of a successful group, this to me is one of the most significant examples I can imagine. These groups of “high performance” and high earning people simply shifted gears almost instantly and went into offering the public a service that was in high demand. Being able to offer a service where and when there is a lot of demand for it is one of the keys to having a successful group. When you are looking for a job–any job–it is important that you do and find work that is in high demand. Doing work that is in high demand and being with a group that is doing highly in demand work is a very simple way to be successful. There is another subtle but important point I would like to make: Even if a group of people is providing a service that is in high demand there still can be numerous problems associated with the organization, namely if some person or persons within the organization are not providing a service of high value. For example, if all of the beggars were to get together and combine their efforts this might be a useful exercise. Nevertheless, there is a strong possibility that some of the beggars might not work as hard and due to this the wages of the overall group would suffer. Many of the beggars might decide that since the wages were being divided up, not all of them needed to work as hard. Consequently, the whole group would suffer. Some beggars might not work at all and still expect money from the labors of the overall group. There is a process that is occurring in companies at all times. It is a process wherein the people who are not contributing sufficient value to the overall group are weeded out for the benefit of the overall group. People who run successful companies know that a company cannot survive if it is not ensuring that everyone is contributing. This is the essence of good management and making companies efficient. I have done a lot I am not proud of in my life from a management standpoint. One of the worst moments of my career was when I hired a well regarded business consultant, who had a bunch of fancy degrees from good schools. He came in to examine and study one of our companies, Legal Authority. At the time, Legal Authority was practically hemorrhaging money and could not turn a profit. The main reason for this was that the costs to produce the product–in this case a service that consisted of creating and mailing résumés and introductory directly to the hiring personnel inside of various companies and organizations, was too high. It was so high, in fact that we seemed to have no choice other than to price ourselves out of the market, just to cover costs. And therein lay the problem. “You need to close the business down,” the consultant told me. “There is no way this business can make money.” When I heard this, it made me angry and I said something that I later came to regret: “You are just weak and afraid to recommend the changes needed to get the business working.” It is never a nice thing to call someone weak; however, here this person had charged us tens of thousands of dollars to study the organization, and his recommendations about improving the company were very poor indeed. He had not made any suggestions that were likely to help the company–other than to close it down. Because I understood the company, I believed the real problem at the time was that we had incredibly high labor costs, since we had at least 20 people on staff, editing various files. In order for the business to work, we needed to lower the labor costs by paying the most productive editors more money and the least productive editors less. It was as simple as this. We could not charge more for the product because we had already tried this and it had not worked. For whatever reason, this particular consultant did not believe in lowering wages and setting up an incentive based system. Once I decided to implement such a system, Legal Authority was able to survive and eventually it started earning money. The issue with Legal Authority was that people who were not productive were holding the company back. Once the nonproductive people were penalized and a good management system was set up for handling them, the company was able to function effectively. The sign of a good organization is that it is able to function effectively, and keep all staff working efficiently–including those who were once responsible for slowing the company down. Organizations that allow nonproductive workers to continue their mediocre contributions are never around for long, even if they have a very good product. In your career it is important that you are always contributing something of value and that you are part of an organization that is contributing something of value. If you are not doing either of these things, you will eventually lose your job. Furthermore, it is important that the organization you are with is able to weed out those who are adding the least value, and to promote those who are adding the most value. I am a tough manager in business, but if there is a demand for the product I am selling, the business I run usually does very well. The secret to this is just to make sure that the business is managed and controlled as carefully as possible. When you see people in a business sitting around doing nothing, you need to realize that these people are affecting you negatively as well, if you work there. Lastly, work to adapt so that you and your organization can create value in all economic climates. This will help you and your organization stay relevant and in demand–even during the lean times. THE LESSON Your must always strive to create value for your organization, and your organization must in turn strive to add value to the world. Since value comes from teams of individuals rather than any single person, the best companies strive to maximize their staffs’ efficiency. You must also ensure that your company weeds out the employees who do not create value in favor of those who do, and that you belong to the latter group.

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

You will not have the career that your are entitled to claim for yourself if you are only wishing for it. Wishes cannot give you what you are seeking. When you have a wish, however, that is backed by a desire, you will start to achieve what you are looking for because you will create opportunities for yourself and your desire will drive you to excel. In Alice in Wonderland, Alice gets trapped in a wonderland and not knowing how to get out, she moves between here and there. One morning she reaches a crossroad. She stops at the crossroad, confused over which road to take. She looks around her for advice and sees a white cat sitting on a boulder enjoying the warmth from the rising sun.

‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ questioned Alice. ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ ‘I don’t know where. . .’ ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

This parable shows that without a desire and a goal you will just wander aimlessly through life. When you replace wishes with desire, then the map becomes clear. Rather than wandering aimlessly through life you will have a destination and the path toward your goal will always be in front of you. When I was in college, on two separate occasions, different people that I was extremely competitive with announced that they were planning on going to the same law school. This story is not notable for one particular reason. It is instructive because of the way I reacted to this, and the lesson it taught me about desire. The smartest guy I knew from my childhood was attending the University of Michigan when I ran into him one evening in a restaurant in Detroit. From the time I was around 5 years old until I graduated from elementary school, this guy had infuriated me to no end. We would always get the #1 and #2 grades on every test we took in each class we were in together. The problem was that no matter how hard I tried I would always be #2. If he was a 97, I would be a 96 or a 95. It happened for several years of my life. His name was Josh and his dad was a professor at a local college. He was a really smart kid that consistently did better than me in every course. I had not seen Josh from the time I was 12 years old until I ran into him at that restaurant one evening. At the time we were both around 21. Josh announced to me that he was planning on applying to and going to the University of Virginia Law School. I have no idea why he had chosen this law school other than he told me he it was inexpensive compared to other schools. Josh was attending the University of Michigan at the time, and I was attending the University of Chicago. I had heard nothing about the University of Virginia Law School but the second he announced that he was planning on applying there, my radar went up and it immediately became something that I too decided I was interested in. I decided that if he was interested in attending this particular school, it must be a really good one. I felt the fire of competitiveness well up in me because I had spent a good portion of my boyhood competing with him. I was a couple of years away from being far enough along in college to apply to law schools, but at that moment I knew I had found a worthy desire and goal. Josh told me how hard the school was to get into and that it had been his dream to attend this school for several years. In that instant I started thinking that I should probably do whatever I could to attend this school as well. When I got back to school, my girlfriend introduced me to a friend of hers who was incredibly smart. He had achieved a perfect score on his LSAT’s and had some of the most incredible grades I had ever heard of anyone getting at the University of Chicago. My girlfriend and this individual had a strictly platonic relationship. However, I had been hearing for the past year of dating her how incredibly smart and talented this particular guy was. It was starting to piss me off a little. Since I had the experience of running into Josh a few months previously, I was understandably even more intrigued when this incredibly smart friend of my girlfriend announced that he too planned on going to the University of Virginia Law School. I was at a dinner with him and several other people, and everyone was sort of hanging on his words. Everyone seemed interested in what he was going to do. This guy was older than me by a few years and when it was time to apply to law schools, he got into the University of Virginia Law School and just about every other law school he applied to. But he chose the University of Virginia. For the next year or so I had to listen to my girlfriend talk about what a great law school this was. Between that and my competitor back in Michigan, it was all too much. I decided that I too was interested in this law school and became determined to do everything I could to get in. At this particular point in my life, it looked as if the last thing I should be doing was going to law school. I had been having a great time in the asphalt business during the summers, and was enjoying this particular line of work more than anything. In fact, I could not wait to get out of school each year so I could do asphalt work. But this particular goal energized me to no end. When I first learned about this school, I had probably a B+ average in school. Once I realized I would need almost all A’s if I stood a shot in hell of getting in this school, I started arranging my life so I got all A’s. I have no idea how I was able to do this until this day. Before taking various classes, I would call up the Dean of Admissions at the University of Virginia Law School and ask them if this was a good class to take. I think he was amused at me calling him, but they remembered me. As a third year college student, I went to meet the Assistant Dean of Admissions when he came to a law school fair in downtown Chicago, and I chatted with him for a long time. I told my teachers that would be writing recommendations for me in the future that I wanted to go to this law school. I took classes from people who had gone to the college there. I did everything within my power to establish an affiliation with the school, even though I was very far away. What I was did was create an incredible desire to go to this school. I even visited the school and spent a day attending classes. I did this on my own without an invitation from the school, and then wrote the school a letter telling them how important this experience had been to me. I dropped names in the letter of the students I met. During my last year of college I wrote another 10 page, single spaced letter to the Assistant Dean of Admissions as to why I should be let into the school. I remember that I had the letter photocopied at Kinkos and when I picked up the letter, there were other students working there who had read it. They were making fun of me and laughed when they gave it to me. However, what I had done was create an incredible desire to go to this school, and put everything I had behind this desire. I had even gotten a job in Washington DC my last year of college, so that I could live in Virginia to establish residence for a year if I did not get into the school initially (having residence in Virginia would have assisted me in getting into the school because there was a preference for in state students at the time). In summary, I did everything within my power to put myself in a position where I would get into the school, and when the time came to apply, I was accepted despite not having test scores anywhere near what I should have had and some other factors that worked against me. The point is that once you set goals for yourself you can achieve practically anything. You need to “get angry” and put some passion behind your goals in order to achieve them. In this particular instance, I used all of my competitive urges and directed them towards this school. I am very glad I did this in this particular instance, because there were a lot of really nice people at the school and attending has enriched my life immeasurably. Without this goal, however, I never would be where I am today. Without having made this goal an obsession I am 100% confident I never would have gotten into the school. I gave the school a filing cabinet of information about myself when I applied, and I am sure they too saw that I was obsessed. We want to be around people who like us. I want your career and life to change. I want you to get obsessed and focused on a goal. This is the only conceivable way your career is going to go to the highest level possible. Find a goal that charges you up and go all out in achieving this goal. Create desire. Nothing happens without strong desire. If you are meandering in your life, everything will change if you get a strong desire. Several years ago, I was in Chicago visiting a recruiter from our firm there. My company was small at the time, employing around 6 or 7 people at most. I was a recruiter at the time, and enjoyed my job and was committed to it. But the idea of getting people jobs had not yet become an all consuming desire. A woman from the Chicago area had been calling me in Los Angeles asking me to help her with her job search for weeks. I told her that I would meet with her the next time I came to Chicago. The woman had been an attorney at Motorola for most of her career and had recently experienced a series of incredible tragedies. Her husband had just died of a heart attack while playing tennis. Her son was handicapped and her mother was dying in her house and was hooked up to respirators as she was living out her last days. Worst of all, Motorola had recently done a massive downsizing and eliminated her job. She had no savings and incredible expenses associated with taking care of her handicapped son. I remember that I met her at the Sears Tower for coffee. She looked very professional, but in her face I could see a tremendous amount of pain. We talked for over an hour and she repeatedly asked me what I could do to help her. At the time, employing normal recruiting methods, there was absolutely nothing I could do to assist her in getting a job. The situation saddened me and made me feel like my life was meaningless and that I was a failure. Here was someone who wanted to work, whom I could not help. It was an awful feeling and it made me feel in many respects that the profession of recruiting was not what it should be doing if I could not help every single person out there. I thought of my own mother who was also widowed by her second husband. I thought of all the people out there who want to work but cannot, and over the next several weeks my desire to help this woman and others turned into an obsession. I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to ensure that people who wanted to work could. I remember sitting with that woman like it was yesterday and how she cried. I remember how it was so hard not break down in tears and hug her. While I am not telling you about this to sell services, over the next year I started companies such as Legal Authority (to assist attorneys with marketing themselves by direct mailing employers) and LawCrossing (which gathers every open job it can find on the Internet and puts these jobs in one place). Within one year, I had increased the size of the company from 7 to over 100 people and it kept growing. I soon launched businesses like EmploymentCrossing (to gather jobs in every field) and EmploymentAuthority (to assist executives with mass mailing) because my desire to help people get jobs had become an obsession. I really became obsessed with what I am doing and still am to this day. I have become both loved and hated for my obsession. In business, I frequently do everything I can to push people out of my way who stand between me and this obsession. Simultaneously, I have done everything within my power to ensure I am getting people jobs. I want people to know how to get jobs, not just from understanding how to search, but how to control their minds. I write about this daily. I read books faster than I can order them. I do tele-seminars. I work on my own mind, so I can help others. My desire to get people jobs is a massive obsession. It is all I think about. I think about it seven days a week, and I work seven days a week. Has this been good for me? Yes. My life has meaning and I feel like I am accomplishing something of great significance. I want to work all the time to forward your goals and I frequently get up at 3:00 am, then 4:00 am, then 5:00 am turbocharged to go to work because I am so enthusiastic about trying to help you. I need to force myself to go back to sleep, so I can get a decent night’s rest. I think about people like the woman who could not find a job and what I can do to change that every day. You need to have an all consuming desire for what you are trying to achieve. You need to find a desire which moves you. No matter how smart you are, no matter what has happened to you in your life, you can do great things if you put a massive desire behind your wishes. Wish big and create a desire, and your life and career will never be the same.