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.

Conversely, some of the greatest powers you personally have in your own career and in business are relationships. Relationships are a powerful force that you can use to your advantage in your career. Inefficient and top-heavy organizations are everywhere, and they become this way mostly due to the power of relationships between the people working there. People often get hired and stay employed–due almost entirely to their ability to connect with their employer–and develop strong relationships at the workplace. I would go so far as to say that probably 20% to 30% of the people inside of most organizations are not actually needed at all. These people are kept employed and are allowed to collect salaries, benefits, and so forth because of the power of the relationships they have developed inside the organization. Others like having these people around and will protect them. This is a good, safe position in which to find yourself.

I used to defend companies when they were sued for employment discrimination, wrongful termination, and so forth. I defended more of these cases than I can even remember; they are a dime a dozen. Generally, when people lose their jobs, it is because they did not have solid relationships within the company, people did not like them, and so forth.

Furthermore, people often lose jobs because they are not protected by others inside of an organization. One of my parents worked for years inside of a major American company, not doing much of anything, because my parent was protected by someone high up. It was due to this relationship that this parent was able to keep their job for so long. There is a constant tension between efficiency and inefficiency inside of organizations, and often relationships can win out over purely rational business-based decisions.

As any business grows, a protectionist sentiment develops, as employees protect each other and do their best to honor various relationships. It is for this reason that most companies generally cease to be competitive within the market or go out of business altogether. In reality, draconian cutbacks, harsh management, and cold and calculating number crunchers are the ones who ultimately save companies and organizations. At the same time, these sorts of people are also typically the greatest enemy of relationships in organizations.

I have been deeply involved in the legal profession for most of my career. Back in the early 1980s, most law firms in the United States and throughout the world dealt with what was called the lockstep compensation system. In effect, this was a system of compensation wherein people were compensated more money for each year they worked at their law firms, regardless of their productivity, the amount of business they generated, or other criteria. The idea was that the older attorneys had paid their dues within the law firm by being there for the longest amount of time. Other law firms simply had compensation systems that were less formal, and might be decided through committees, for example. In this case, it was possible for the firm to determine individuals’ salaries based on the quality of their relationships with superiors.

Starting in the 1980s, consulting firms began to come into law offices, and they started to mix it up. The consultants showed the law firms that they could increase their profitability by rewarding the highest producers based on their individual productivity, instead of paying everyone based on informal compensation systems. The consultants set up point systems and other measurements of productivity within the law firms. Before long, a sea change occurred inside of the legal profession, and numerous attorneys ended up losing their jobs or taking massive hits in their compensation. The relationships inside of the organizations became drastically de-emphasized and, instead, the decisive factor became numbers and other quantifiable items. This change is still occurring in law firms, and it has been devastating to numerous attorneys, specifically to those whose lives and careers have revolved around their ability to create relationships within their organizations. Law firms, however, have had to undergo this restructuring in order to survive.

I have the most hands-off management style you can ever imagine. Throughout the years, I have employed numerous managers whom I have given near complete discretion to make all sorts of hiring decisions without my involvement. In watching how these people have hired new employees, I have learned that people hire the kinds of people they like, relate to, and want to spend time with outside of work. I have seen this in most companies, firms, and other organizations I have observed throughout the years.

Several years ago, I hired a human resources director who had experience in working for a large multinational organization in a hiring capacity. On one of his first days of work, the two of us had lunch and spent some time together. While I am not sure how it came out, the man told me that he really liked thin women with giant breasts. I did not think much about it at the time; however, I did find it somewhat humorous, considering this fellow was an older man with a real professorial sort of demeanor. I filed this information away in the back of my head and forgot all about it.

I met with this man by phone and in person once a week, and during these meetings, I told him about various people that the company needed to hire. The company was growing very quickly at the time and this person was generally hiring several people per week. Each evening he would take home tons of résumés, review them, and hire people the next day. Because our company was spread over three buildings in Pasadena, I did not meet, nor did I see, all of the people the guy was hiring. In addition, I was traveling a great deal, so I was not in the office as much as I would have liked to be.

At some point, I was in the office and I took a look around. I immediately realized that the man had hired nothing but thin women with large breasts. In addition, the more I watched this story unfold, the more I noticed that the women he had hired all seemed to fawn all over him, understanding that he liked feeling validated constantly by women.

Was this a bad thing? I am not sure. What I do know is that, from what I understood, all of the women were pretty good at their jobs–at least to begin with. As time went on, however, it turned out that a few of the women were not performing very well. One, for example, had spent the majority of her time cutting and pasting outfit combination ideas into a Word document, instead of working. When her horrible work ethic was brought to my attention, the human resources director said:

“She is the most valuable person in this company,” and he did everything he could to defend her, although she was clearly not necessary to the company’s functioning. The human resources director fought with everything he had to keep this woman around, due to a perceived connection that he shared with her. This is just a minor example of the power of relationships in business.

I remember another employee who had a real leaning toward a certain type of employee. The person that he seemed most interested in hiring and protecting was always of the same race, sex, physical build, and other characteristics. When people that this person hired did not do well on the job, they too were defended blindly and with a great deal of gusto, despite being poor performers.

I have also seen people kept on who literally had no work to do, because they were considered valuable to the company. In the past our company has had entire departments staffed when one person could have probably handled the work. A manager often grows protective of his employees, because of how the relationships with them develop over time: “We could never do without these people!” they may say. However, this usually could not be further from the truth.

Getting a job, advancing in your career, getting business, making the sale, and more–it is all about relationships. The better relationships that we form, the better off we are. When you are being interviewed for a job, your success often has more to do with the connection and quality of relationships you have with others than anything else. People want to work alongside those with whom they feel they have a connection–not necessarily with those who they perceive will do the best job.

One of the most interesting things about job interviews is that many times there is a favorite for a certain job–before everyone has had a chance to interview. That favorite could be someone who is a friend of the person making the hiring decision. Or it could be someone who made a great impression on the interviewer before you got to the interview. If you are interviewing after that person has interviewed, it means you have come into the interview at a distinct disadvantage, because the interviewer may have a sense of loyalty to the person he or she has already interviewed and favored; in this case, the interviewer does not want to like you too much. What ends up happening in these sorts of interviews is that a great deal of “professional formalities” generally occur, and you will notice that you are unable to make any sort of meaningful connection with your interviewer. This clamming up on the part of the interviewer is generally a very bad sign. In order to get a job, get business, and reach your potential in anything, it is extremely important that you make a personal connection.

If you cannot connect with the people you want to hire you, or the people you want to do business with, then you are not going to have an easy time getting work. You need to break down the walls of professionalism between you and others and make sure that the person relates to you, likes you, and feels a connection to you. There is nothing more important than this.

A danger in business, in your career, and in your job search is professionalism. Many people have a profound belief that they must be extremely professional in the business world–with employers and with others–at all times. While I am in no way against proper decorum, there is a real danger in acting too professional. This is because always being hyper-professional will keep others from feeling connected to you. If you cannot relate to people and build strong personal relationships with them, you are generally not going to do well. Relationships can be built in many ways, but they exert so much influence over our day-to-day careers and lives that without any sort of connection, we are often quite lost.

I absolutely hate it when people in business try to act extra “professional.” I dislike being “professional” in business a great deal as well. Professionalism can act as a wall that potentially prevents you from getting that job, promotion, or business. If you actually have a real shot at getting the job or position, you will know it because your interviewer will most often let down his or her guard, confide in you, and make the connection. However, if the person you are dealing with actually does not want anything to do with you, he or she will not be willing to reveal much to you and will try to keep his or her distance. The lack of personal connection will most probably either get you into trouble now (i.e., you will not get hired) or later (i.e., you will be let go in the future).

An employer’s lack of genuine interest in you makes it incredibly difficult for you to get the job, to get ahead, and to accomplish what you are seeking to accomplish. You need to be able to relate to people and connect with them at work, in interviews, and elsewhere. The more connected you are, the better you will do.

THE LESSON

The influence of relationships can inhibit business growth and lead to disaster. At the same time, however, relationships constitute your greatest assets in your career. All aspects of your job search and your career depend on the relationships you cultivate, so you must strive to form the best relationships possible. You must engender affinity and genuine connections with those around you to achieve success.

• Discover what you want!
• Have a positive attitude!
• Create big goals!
• Have discipline!
• Follow through!
• Believe in yourself!
• Keep trying, even when you fail!

Virtually any self-improvement book you may read and any self-improvement seminar you may attend will give you some variation of this advice. I am not criticizing any of this advice, because it works and can help people become very successful. These are concrete, guiding principles that have been proven over many years and in many cases. For example, if you do not follow through with whatever you are seeking to achieve, then it is unlikely you will ever amount to much; you need to follow through. If it were my decision, I would make sure that all schools instruct people about these various principles of self-improvement, because they are so incredibly important. Far too many people are nowhere near reaching their potential because they do not understand the basics of self-improvement. There is a real difference between long-term success and short-term success. Familiarizing yourself with the principles of self-improvement can help you advance in your career and life for a while, but they are not the be all and end all of what it really takes to succeed in the long term. When the economy is good, the people who follow general self-improvement advice can always do well for a time. For example, they can more easily get jobs and, depending on market conditions, get one raise and promotion after another. There is nothing wrong with this; however, to experience consistent and long-lasting success, a completely different set of skills becomes necessary. Real self-improvement and self-development has nothing to do with you. In fact, the people who really end up succeeding in their work are usually those who believe that becoming better means the following:

• helping others discover what they want
• helping others have positive attitudes
• helping others create big goals
• helping others have discipline
• helping others follow through with their goals
• helping others believe in themselves
• helping others keep trying even when they fail

It is like this in every industry and every career path I know about. If you name any profession, I will point out how becoming good at the profession requires you to put others first, and how the more you do this, the more success you will find. Currently, we are in a horrible hiring market for attorneys. One of my jobs is running a legal recruiting firm. Over the past several months, I have seen numerous recruiters fail at their jobs. Many of these legal recruiters got into the business initially because they wanted to make money; they liked the lifestyle associated with being a recruiter, and they had lots of other reasons for choosing the job, all of which revolved around them. These recruiters tend to be suffering the worst in this economy. Conversely, the recruiters who got into the business because they view it as an outlet to help others have continued doing incredibly well. Most likely this is because the best attorney candidates can sense whether their recruiters really want to help them. The attorneys trust these recruiters and flock to them. The self-improvement we seek starts with helping others. Making everything all about ourselves is a huge epidemic in our society, whether one analyzes people in politics, sports, business–or just daily life. I love watching politics from the sidelines. The longer you watch politicians, the more you realize that a lot of them are crooked and are only in it for themselves, not to help others. The politicians are often, it seems, more concerned with getting bribes, steering lucrative contracts to friends, and otherwise benefiting from their position of power. Instead of being concerned about their constituents and society at large, they are often more concerned with making sure that their own needs are met. There will always be scandals such as those with the former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, because the idea of “self-improvement” for many people means enriching themselves at others’ expense. Not too long ago, I met a guy who owns a sports book casino. Since he is taking millions of dollars in bets a day during the sports season, he told me that he and other casino owners have learned that there is a ton of graft and so forth in college sports, for example. It is not uncommon for college football games to be fixed. The casinos can often pick this up due to betting patterns. When games occur that appear to be fixed, the casinos will usually observe players making ridiculous errors and appearing to throw the game. In these cases, the athletes are obviously more concerned with themselves than their team or fans. The same thing happens in business. Many executives get to high places in business and suddenly you see them doing all sorts of things that are more about them than about others. Whether it is an executive doling out stock options that are backdated or some other misdeed, executives are continually under fire for being more concerned with their own “self-improvement” than helping the people around them. This is something I see all the time with high-ranking executives and others: They simply care more about themselves than their customers, coworkers, or anyone else. The key to your own success is simple: Nothing you do in your life is about you. You simply cannot succeed in your life if you believe it is all about you. It is never about you and never will be about you. Ignoring this concept can be dangerous and can crush your chances of success. Your goals and aspirations need to be far greater and larger than focusing solely on your goals and what you want. Whatever you are seeking in your life, you will only find it when you are working to fulfill the goals and aspirations of others. Detroit is a fascinating city to me in so many respects. There was so much wealth there at one time, which was brought about by the automobile industry. Now, over the past five years, homes there have gone down in value by up to four times, as industry and the economy have suffered due to the weakening state of the auto industry. In reality, though, the city has been collapsing for years and has been going downhill for my entire lifetime. One of my first memories is when, in the early 1970s, Detroit started to proclaim itself “the Renaissance City,” and the Renaissance Center was built in downtown Detroit. The idea was that the city was on its way back, experiencing a revival. The problem with this, however, was that the city was not really going to come back. I believe a switchover had occurred in the psychology of the automobile companies in Detroit, from focusing on “what can we provide to the people” to “what the people can provide to us.” Simply stated, the automotive companies became insular and more concerned with their own needs and wants than with providing an exceptional product and service to the American public. Throughout the United States, there are all sorts of towns like Atchison, Kansas, which grew up and thrived at one time due to the railroads coming through. When the train diminished in importance and other forms of transportation became prominent, these towns lost a great deal of their wealth and became shells of their former selves. Detroit is another one of these towns too, and there are countless others. If these towns had been more concerned with what they could give, instead of what they could take, then my thought is that they would still have prospered, no matter what had happened. Lately, I have been reading lots of articles in newspapers, magazines, and so forth about people who formerly had high-level jobs in investment banks and similar “big” employers, who are now doing things like working in restaurants, or in sporting goods stores for close to minimum wage. “I was making $150,000 a year, and now the best job I can get only pays $11.00 an hour!” is the sort of statement you read in these articles again and again. The articles are always the same and they drone on about how the person at issue can no longer afford to go out to eat, how they are selling their house, and how they are so frustrated that employers are not responding to their applications. I have a ton of sympathy for these people. The employment market is bad; however, I often notice there is a problem with the psychology of the people I am reading about when I study these articles. The problem is that, more often than not, the people complaining about the job market and their employment situation are focused on themselves and their woes–instead of being focused on what they can provide for others. In fact, a lot of these unemployed people might not have lost their jobs or had difficult times finding a new job if their focus had been 100% on others. These sorts of articles lead me to question the ultimate value these people were providing, to begin with.

• In almost every case, when people lose their jobs, they are not focused enough on their employers’ needs.
• In almost every case, when an employer goes out of business, it was not focused enough on others’ needs.
• In almost every case, when people have a difficult time finding a job, they are not focusing enough on another’s needs when they are interviewing and putting together their application materials.

Nothing you do in this life is all about you. Your career is not all about you. The company you work for is not all about you. Your family is not all about you. Your friends are not all about you. It is always all about the other person. Your life and the opportunities out there are so much larger and all encompassing than you. Most people spend their time asking questions about themselves and pondering over themselves. They ask questions about what they can do to be better, questions about their goals, questions about their future. Constantly looking within one’s self can actually get in the way of success. You are one person and the world is made up of billions of people. You are always going to find more answers and more satisfying answers when you look outside of yourself instead of inside yourself. When you provide value, help, and support to others, this will provide you with more spiritual, psychological, financial, and other benefits than any other self-improvement concept out there. The way to achieve your greatest potential, and to truly help yourself, is to start helping others. THE LESSON True self-improvement actually has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with helping others towards their goals. Remember that nothing you do in your life is ultimately about you. Your goals and aspirations must be larger and greater than focusing solely on what you want; helping others will provide you with more spiritual, financial, and psychological benefits than any other kind of self-improvement.

• They would have questions about the proper sorts of candidates to send to law firms.
• They would have technical questions about different law firms.
• They would want to know various company procedures and so forth.

I would happily share and teach all of this information; however, in the weeks and months that I would train each new recruiter, I really was never all that concerned with fundamentals. For example, I knew that the recruiters would learn about various law firms in due course. I knew that I could teach them how to present candidates to law firms most effectively. What I was most concerned with was something far deeper and more significant.  There was one thing that I knew would either make or break these recruiters and determine whether or not they succeeded. By the time each recruiter was done being trained, I knew and could tell many, many things. I knew if they would succeed at the job. I knew if they would last at the job. What I knew, all came down to one thing: Whether or not the person believed the job was about them—or was about others. The more the recruiter truly believed the job was about others, the better they did. “None of this is about you,” I would always tell people.  “It is 100% about others and has nothing to do with you.” Less than 30% of all the recruiters I’ve hired, worked on, and trained ever “got” this.  A few people understood this naturally (most do not). My training would generally hit the new recruiters with this message from multiple directions and in unexpected ways. I might have them read self-improvement books where this was an underlying (but not direct) message. Generally, sometime during the final week or so of the training, I would try to deliver them this message in a serious way. I might bring it up in the evening while we were sitting by a fire and there were no interruptions. I felt the message needed to be taken in, pondered, and slept on. The reason for this was that I felt the message was incredibly important and something that needed to be absorbed and fully understood. In fact, I felt the message was the most important career lesson the person would ever receive. When recruiters “got” this message, their career and life changed. They would very quickly start doing exceptionally well and making all sorts of placements. They would be referred to others. Their entire career would just get fired up in a real hurry.  People who understood and practiced this mantra almost universally did very well. The power of this message was so strong that two recruiters working together in the same office might have results that were 180 degrees different. One recruiter might have fifteen people interviewing at one time and be making placements at a rapid clip.  Another recruiter might be lucky to have anything going on at all—despite having access to the same resources as the other recruiter. It is all about the other person and never about you. What does it mean when I say people believe the job is about them? It means people are focused on their needs and wants.  They focus on things like

• How much money they make
• Working too hard
• Giving too much of themselves
• Whether others in a similar job are making more money than them
• How others in their company are doing compared to them
• How much free time they have
• Hobbies and pursuits outside of work
• How they are perceived by others
• Not being taken advantage of
• The prestige of other people they are working with
• The quality of their benefits

People who are focused on themselves spend a lot of time worrying and thinking about stuff like this. In fact, they generally spend just as much time thinking about these sorts of things as they spend thinking about their jobs and the people they are serving.  When someone is focused on things that have nothing to do with serving the people they are working for, they get predictable results. When a job is not about you, everything changes.  If a job is not about you:

• You take time to prepare an exceptional work product.
• You see things from another person’s point of view constantly.
• You think about the other person’s needs while you are working and not your own.
• You take the time to meet people and form alliances.
• You communicate with people in a way that they can tell you care about them.
• You write articles, give speeches, and do all sorts of things that people focused on themselves do not.

The world provides rewards (money, status, and so forth) in direct proportion to the value you provide. You will simply provide more value to others when you are focused on giving and concerned about the welfare of those you are working for. There are essentially three types of people and businesses out there: Those that over deliver, those that deliver what is expected, and those that under deliver. People who over deliver generally believe the job is about others.  People who under deliver generally believe the job is just about them. In your current and past jobs, you certainly have been promoted, let go, or remained stagnant based on whether you over or under delivered.  In terms of the businesses you frequent and like, the odds are very good that you are most comfortable with those which over deliver. Your personal success, like the success of most businesses, comes down to whether you over or under deliver. In my job, I speak with people who are unemployed and have lost jobs all the time.  I also speak with people who are incredibly successful all the time.

• The one constant I have noticed when speaking with the most successful people is that they make “over delivery” incredibly important in their work.
• In terms of speaking with the most unsuccessful people, they make under delivery the most important thing in their careers.

The laws associated with making money, getting ahead, and being successful – all really do come down to over and under delivery.  Most people who believe that a job is about others, over deliver.  Most people who believe the job is about themselves, under deliver. Do more than expected, work harder,  give more, and you will simply do better in life. There’s really no question about it. In your career, one of the most important things you can do is to get a reputation for over delivering as opposed to under delivering. Everything in your career and life—and how you will be known–generally comes down to whether you over deliver. You need to be focused on what other people want and need. Being focused on the needs of others and not yourself is crucial in any pursuit. I love reading biographies of incredibly successful people. I like doing this because studying the lives of successful people teaches me lessons that I can teach others about their own careers. Most biographies start out in the person’s childhood and then go from there. One of the most interesting parts of these biographies is reading about the work ethic of the people. The great successes are always are people who over deliver and are concerned about others.  They can see what other people want and could use and make this a priority. I also love reading stories about successful companies.  Successful companies also get the reputation for being focused on others and anticipating others’ wants and needs. To truly reach your potential, you need to over deliver–be focused on others and not yourself. THE LESSON You are rewarded in direct proportion to the value that you deliver, meaning that you have to deliver in order to reach your full potential. You will provide more value to others when you are focused on giving. People who under-deliver view their jobs as being primarily about them, while those who over-deliver see their jobs as being about others. Strive to develop a reputation for delivering rather than under-delivering.

• 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.

• They worry about their appearance.
• They worry about how they will describe past jobs and moves.
• They worry about their experience.
• They may worry about their education.

All of these are valid worries (and may be important to the employer) but none of them are as important as the emotional motivation behind the employer’s hiring you. Emotion is often irrational, and employers often hire people for irrational reasons. In fact, our entire economy runs on irrationality. This may seem like a bold statement, but look at it this way: In virtually every news story I have read about when unemployment is high, something is always mentioned about how companies and other organizations are “doing more with fewer people.” Many of the stories mention things like companies doing just as much business (yet being more profitable) with 25% of the workforce. More recently, news stories have mentioned ”record corporate profits” because companies have staffed down and are doing the same amount of work with fewer employees in response to recessionary conditions. This indicates to me that something else is going on when employers are in hiring mode. A rational and unemotional organization would only hire as many people as it needs to do the work. It would not hire more people than it needs to do the work—and it certainly would not hire four times as many people as it needs to do the work. There is, of course, the need for extra employees in case someone leaves. There is the need to make sure people are not overworked. But there is absolutely no reason for any company to have four times as many employees as it needs to do the work. (Forget about four times as many employees … there is no reason to have 25% more employees than is needed to do the work.) Overstaffing is a complete waste of any organization’s money and resources. If this is the case, what is going on?

• In good economic climates, companies may be enthusiastic about the future and therefore want to hire more people—this is emotional.
• In good economic climates, more work that might not even be necessary is allowed to be done—this is emotional.
• In good economic climates, companies may want to see their offices and factories full of people—this is emotional.
• In good economic climates, friends and relatives of people are hired more readily—this is emotional.
• In good economic climates, people who are not productive are kept around—this is emotional.

Hiring becomes more of an emotional function for many employers than a rational and business-oriented function. For a few years, in my own company, we had a man who was consistently working massive amounts of overtime. It got to be so that his overtime was so excessive, I spoke with his supervisor and told him that overtime had to stop. Then I spoke with his supervisor again. Then I spoke with him again. Then I spoke with him again. This went on for more than a year. Finally, I told the supervisor that if the overtime did not stop, I would fire the guy working overtime. To my astonishment, the supervisor said: ”Boss, he has three kids to feed and a house. You need to let him work overtime.” The supervisor was telling me, essentially, that his emotional connection to the employee overrode the company’s more pragmatic and business-oriented reasons (saving costs) for limiting his hours. I could list countless examples of these sorts of emotional connections and how they come into play in the workplace. There are so many emotional connections that virtually every company is far more inefficient than it should be. If you are smart, you should realize that these emotional connections and emotional alliances are almost as important as your professional performance at work. These emotional connections are important in your getting and keeping a job and just about everything you do in your professional life. Make the most of your emotional connection and realize that emotion is the dominant force in most professional settings.

• 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.

• 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.

• A highly skilled surgeon typically earns much more money than a regular doctor, simply because the duties of his or her profession require more focus.
• A patent attorney typically earns more money than a litigation attorney because his job often requires more focus than the other.

When you are more focused, you are more productive with your time. Society and the work world values people who are able to bring a high degree of focus to any situation at hand in the workplace. There is nothing more important in any job than your productivity. You will lose direction in your career and even in your life if you are not being productive. You will also lose direction if you are not measuring your productivity. Over the years, I have spoken to hundreds of people who are looking for jobs. I have found that a large percentage of people dream of a job and of a life without a lot of pressure. Ideally, many people look forward to retirement or not having to work at all because of wise money management or luck. But the less focus and productivity you give to society, the less you are rewarded in terms of money, prestige, and more. Productivity is rewarded by society. There is generally no free ride available. We must always be productive in one form or another. We must be able to produce. You must produce in every job you have. What you produce must have a much greater value than what you take. You must consciously (in every job you have, or any job you are seeking) create tremendous value. You must develop personal statistics and goals that showcase your value, even if none are provided to you by your employer. If your employer is not measuring your productivity, it is often a smart thing for you to measure your own productivity. When you show your employer what you have achieved throughout the week, as the end of the week draws near, it will be clear to the employer who is doing what, and which employees stand out as more valuable. Several years ago, I hired a very talented attorney to work for me on a contract basis. This was when our company was much younger, but growing. The attorney was in his late 40s at the time, and he was pretty seasoned when I hired him. Something about him stands out in my mind; something he did really impressed me. He would send a detailed report to me each week about what he had accomplished in his job. This report went over everything he had done in considerable detail, and was always very well written. While he eventually left to start his own law practice, he was somebody I really valued. I can say with absolute certainty that he’d never have lost his job if he had stayed on with the company. He was productive with his time, and he showed me on a weekly basis. I appreciated that, because at the time I had no methods for measuring the productivity of the people working for me. When I hired his replacement, I requested a weekly report, but the replacement resisted. The replacement was someone who did not use their time wisely, wandering around a good part of the day gossiping and so forth. This is not productive behavior. Over the course of the past several years of hiring people, the best employees continue to be the ones who document what they do every single week. My best employees do this, and no one has ever lost their job when they document their work to me every week. I highly recommend doing this. Your superiors want to see productivity, and if you document what you are doing, it shows them exactly how you are spending company time. And if you do solid work, this can become a tool for making yourself virtually indispensable. It may result in more raises, better job security, and frequent promotions. Employers respect those who document their work. About six years ago or so, an employee of mine was in my office, telling me about how someone they knew had just gotten a large inheritance. “He’ll never have to work again,” my employee observed. I thought about this and realized the person I was speaking to was also interested in “never working again,” and that their entire goal in life was seemingly to find a situation that would allow them to get rich, and never have to return to a job. This is not something I have ever been at all interested in. The idea of not having to work simply does not appeal to me. To work is to contribute to society and provide value. To work is also to be engaged and to have a purpose in your life each day. There is nothing more important than working and making sure you are doing the job you are best at, contributing every single day. I have been reading many recent articles about people who have been laid off. Certain people are having a difficult time finding jobs. But I have witnessed this for many years. In the legal profession, for example, people traditionally have a difficult time finding a new job after getting laid off. Many law firms with openings demand that recruiters only submit people who have not been laid off. There is a strong interest in the legal profession and other professions in avoiding people who have been laid off. One article I read recently titled Only the Employed Need Apply in the Wall Street Journal discusses the fact that many employers avoid the unemployed when hiring:

With unemployment at 9.4% and rising, it’s a buyer’s market for employers that are hiring. But many employers are bypassing the jobless to target those still working, reasoning that these survivors are the top performers. “If they’re employed in today’s economy, they have to be first string,” says Ryan Ross, a partner with Kaye/Bassman International Corp., an executive recruiting firm in Dallas. Mr. Ross says more clients recently have indicated that they would prefer to fill positions with “passive candidates” who are working elsewhere and not actively seeking a job.

The reason the unemployed are avoided is because there is the presumption that they are not as productive as the people at their firms who were not let go. The idea is that companies and firms keep their most productive people, and this has been understood in hiring circles for as long as I can remember. If you are productive and do really good work, in most cases employers will do what they can to hold on to you because you provide more value than you take. If you are not productive, and you are seen as more of a taker than a producer, your job will always be in jeopardy. This is a horrible position to be in; ideally you should never have to worry about keeping your job. You need to be productive and focused, and you must constantly prove your value to your employer. Even if your employer is not measuring. THE LESSON You must hone your ability to block out external stimuli and focus solely on the work you provide for your employer, not what you can take from the company. High focus leads to high productivity, which in turn leads to high value. Attaining such a high degree of focus will make you much in demand in the business world and in society at large. Productivity should be measures either by you, or by your employer, and the most successful companies are usually those who prioritize keeping track of their employees’ productivity.