Harrison Barnes » looking for jobs http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:08:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Informal Networks and Referrals http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/informal-networks-and-referrals/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/informal-networks-and-referrals/#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:00:58 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=16416 16416 Informal networks can make a massive difference in the quality of not only your job search but also your life. Too few people take the time to understand the importance of informal networks and referrals when it comes to getting your foot in the door with an employer. If you’re looking for jobs, networking can be a deciding factor in what job offers you will get. One of the crucial aspects of informal networking is recognizing the power of endorsements, and that’s really what a referral is. You see this happening all around you. For example, on television, an actor or actress might lend their name to a product. Diet products, cars, and investment firms all have a famous person giving an endorsement. Why is that? Because it works. People trust the opinions of those they are familiar with, whether those opinions come from famous actors and athletes or former coworkers and colleagues. Since you’ve seen the person before and have an idea of who they are that makes you much more comfortable. You’re more likely to trust them. In the medical profession and in the legal profession, doctors, dentists, and lawyers rely almost exclusively on referrals. When someone is professionally recommended, it changes the balance of the equation. A recommendation carries a lot of weight. That’s how employers feel about getting job candidates. They would much rather meet you through a referral, because it makes you seem more trustworthy. Why is this the case? When someone meets you through a referral, there is already a lot of evidence as to your character and ability to do the job. It’s almost as if the referral source has testified on your behalf. When a recruiter gets involved it means the employer couldn’t find someone to do it. Most employers, like you, like to refer people to things. If they have a friend or someone they know, they would rather bring that person in and refer that person to the job than otherwise. In most cases, they would rather network to try to find the right person. When someone refers you to a job, or when somebody refers you to someone else that has a job opening, you are much more likely to get that job than you would without that referral. For instance, if I suggest you consider my friend, or some other specific person, and you evaluate them that is going to make a huge difference. Coming through someone you trust as an authority for the person being recommended for a job is something that makes a giant and profound difference. The writer Charles Lamb said, “Don’t introduce me to a man. I want to go on hating him and I can’t hate a man whom I know.” That applies directly to your job search. If your prospective employer knows you, it’s more likely you’ll get the interview and the job. On a personal level, an introduction by a colleague, business associate, and so forth can have the same effect as an endorsement. I’ve been studying referrals and how they work for quite a long time, for most of my career, in fact. I remember when I was starting my career. I was working for one of the more powerful attorneys in the United States and in one meeting, I remember very clearly he said that the one thing he regretted more than anything was that he didn’t develop good relationships with his classmates and others when he was in law school. I thought that was a very interesting observation. Essentially, what he was saying was that there were all of these people whom he could have relied on when he was getting into his career, but he had never been able to turn to them because he had never done the work to network with them. There are people who can provide you with employment opportunities all around you. In addition to your coworkers, relatives, and friends, you will see at least a hundred other people who could be a resource for you, if you look closely. When you go to the grocery store, the cashier is an opportunity; when you buy gas, when you go to the dry cleaners, when you sit in the doctor’s office—every single place that you go and where you spend your time is an opportunity to get a referral for a job. If you’re looking for a job, you can use these referrals to find new opportunities. If you’re happily employed, you should always be in the process of building a giant referral network for yourself that you can rely on when you need it. Your network can help you get employed and stay employed. Making Yourself Referable How do you make yourself referable? How do you become that person whom others are willing to refer to a job? You’re about to discover some basic strategies to ensure you are referable. One of the most important things to understand about referrals is that in order to be referable, you need to do good work. That is pretty basic. If you want someone to stand behind you, your work must be exceptional. Being average is not enough. You need to be remarkable in some way. You need to be someone that others look at and say, “This is a person that I would recommend.” You want to be the kind of person whom others look at and think, “This person seems like a good fit for this sort of job or that sort of job.” In becoming referable, there are a couple of aspects to consider, one personal and the other professional. In the personal category, you can goof off, have a lot of fun, and be a certain personality with your friends. But in the professional sphere, you need to be seen as a person who takes work seriously, who is serious, and who likes what they do. These are the kinds of people that are referable. When you refer someone like that, it’s because you believe this person is studying his or her field every day and this person is interested in it. These aspects make the person much more exciting and much more referable. That is exceptionally important. In order to be referable, I believe a really important thing is that you position yourself in some way that is different from your competitors. You should present yourself as unique and as having something to offer that other people don’t have. It could be your intense interest in the subject matter. It could be that you’re very thorough in what you do. It could be lots of things, but when you’re out there in the market and selling yourself, it’s exceptionally important that you’re viewed as someone who’s unique, different, and memorable. Here’s a story to illustrate the point. One of the architects of Toyota, who helped the company grow and who helped General Motors grow at one point in the 1980s when he started working with them, was a man named Dr. Edward Demming. Dr. Demming talked about the need to always improve products and services. When an organization does that, it develops loyal customers. In business, identifying and creating loyal customers is really the most important thing. That’s because merely satisfied customers may try a new product from a competitor and switch to it if the price is right. Loyal customers, on the other hand, are the ones who come back to your products time and again and might even pay more than the competition is asking. They’ll brag about the quality of a product or a service, and they’ll buy the company’s new products with little sales effort, often bringing a friend. What this means to you is, if you’re able to demonstrate to your network how referable you are, that you’re always striving to be the best in your field and improve, those people in your network will brag about you and tell others how good you are. When a job opens up, they will naturally think of you. That is what you should be thinking about in your career. You always need to strive to improve and that effort will definitely make you referable. Most employers, or people that are in hiring positions, are constantly marketed to by friends, colleagues, and others looking for jobs. In most cases, if there is a job to be filled it can be filled through that informal network. That’s why understanding these informal networks is so crucial and meaningful to your employment experience. When someone refers somebody, they’re really giving that person their seal of approval. If somebody refers a person who turns out to be dishonest, a bad worker, or lazy, this will reflect badly on the referrer. That’s one reason it’s always important to be honest, work hard, and be the sort of person someone would want to refer. In a professional setting, and even to some extent in your personal life, it’s important that you do everything you can to make yourself referable. Embody the personality, the characteristics, and the strengths that make you referable. One final important point about referrals is that they’re very inexpensive. You don’t have to be part of a job site. You don’t have to pound the pavement too much or spend money. Your odds of getting the interview are going to be higher, and your odds of getting the job are going to be much higher with the referral. Building Your Network Market research done by Ford has shown that a happy customer tells an average of eight people the good news about a product or service that they’ve enjoyed. A customer who’s disgruntled will tell at least twenty people. If you’re always complaining to friends, or always upset, or always having problems at work, and you tell your friends about this, it’s going to impact your referral appeal. Your friends are a good source of referrals, but again, friends are putting their credibility on the line. When they refer you, they want to make sure you really are the sort of person who’s referable. Other people that can refer you are relatives. Relatives are a great source of referrals, not only your close relatives, who are the most obvious, but many times the best source of referrals are the relatives you don’t even know very well. A lot of them want to do something for you and they may have never had a chance. Your entire network of friends, and friends of friends, your relatives, and former coworkers are a good source of referrals. Again, that is why it’s important to remember that when you’re at a job, wherever you are, to make as good of an impression as you possibly can. Relatives are a great source of referrals. Both relatives and friends typically feel a need to help you, and they should because they want to help people that are in a situation similar to them. They just want to help. It’s always important that you have contact with friends and relatives and you understand that they are people that can refer you. An excellent and often overlooked source is your former coworkers. People that you may have worked with in the past are a great source of referrals because they can speak to your abilities, to your character, and all sorts of other things. They’re an important source of referrals, and people you should always count on anytime you’re considering looking for a job. Even your current coworkers, if they understand your situation, can be helpful. I would just say to be careful with your current coworkers about letting them know you’re looking for a job, if you feel like you need to. Always stay in contact with people, including your friends, relatives, and former coworkers. That is easier said than done, and I’m not saying that is an easy thing to do, but you need to make a habit of it. Realize that every single person you know is one more person out there looking for a job for you and looking for opportunities to pop up. When you see nominations for the Supreme Court, or nominations for ambassadorships, or people getting recruited to be at the head of certain corporations, these are often the result of referrals. It happens in lower level jobs, too, but those higher-level jobs you read about or see in the media are perfect examples of referrals working. Referrals are a way of life and something that you need to build up. You need to realize that the people you know and the people you have relationships with are all very important and good channels through which to refer people to you. Who else can refer you? Former coworkers and current coworkers. You obviously do not want to make it known, in certain respects, that you’re looking for a job. But if you talk to current coworkers that you have good relationships with, they will refer new information about available jobs and so forth when they come up. A lot of times, even your boss may want to refer you to another company because they think you’d do a good job and they think maybe you’d be able to refer business to them. You just never know. It’s very important to realize that every source out there is a potential referral. “How in the world?” you may ask. I gave you the example of a boss, but how could your current job be a source of referrals to another job? There are many ways that can happen. If you go into your job, do good work, and are improving, but the company doesn’t have any open opportunities, or if you’ve hit a roadblock, they may come to you if you express some frustration about that and offer a referral to another job that is better and offers more opportunity. You just don’t know. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen many times and it’s something that’s important for you to be aware of. Another group of people that may refer people to you are customers. If you’re in any type of business, you likely have customers, clients, or people you deal with in a professional capacity. That segment of the population that you’re serving can be a source of referrals. If that segment of the population sees you as someone who’s very interested, very committed, and very behind what you’re doing, they’re more likely to help you when you need it. Your neighbors are a good source of referrals for a lot of reasons. Neighbors live close by and want to have a harmonious relationship with you. They want to feel good about the people they’re near. If they see you as a committed mother, father, or whatever, and you come to them and they understand you’re looking for a job or are interested in something, they’re a potential source of referrals. For example, say you’re going to your child’s sporting event. All of the people you meet at that one event are sources of referrals. It’s very important that you’re aware there are many sources of referrals out there. You need to take advantage of them. In addition, don’t forget about your church, synagogue, temple, or mosque. If you have a religious interest, that is another source of referrals. Allow people in these groups to know who you are. Every single organization that you are a part of is a source of referrals. If you are in an association, that is a source of referrals. The association could be fraternal, social, industrial, or charitable. Charities are a huge source of business. They are a very good source of referrals. Writers from newspapers are a good source of referrals, because they converse with and know so many people. For example, if a newspaper interviews me, I can be a source of referrals. The newspaper writer who’s in the same industry as me can be a source of referrals. I’ve actually heard about attorneys learning about job opportunities from people that write in the industry. Earlier, I mentioned using your dry cleaner as a source for a referral. You might ask yourself, “Why is a dry cleaner a source of referral?” The answer is that people are coming in to them all day long. Every five minutes, someone walks in, hands over their dry cleaning, and a lot of times makes idle chat. Throughout the day, this one dry cleaner probably meets fifty or sixty people, maybe more. They may only exchange pleasantries, but they may also know what their clients do for a living and that one of them in particular happens to be looking for a receptionist. You want to make sure this line of your network is open so that you are the one who finds out about the opening. Using Your Network So, you have a great big list of all these people in your network. How do you make use of all of these referrals? The first thing you do is let people know that you’re looking for a job. It can be as simple as asking for a job. Just putting the word out there is something that is going to make a big difference in terms of you finding your next job or getting a job. It’s so simple, but it’s something a lot of people forget to do or are afraid to do. I think, more than anything, it’s important that you use your referrals to understand who may have a relationship with the sort of employer that you’re interested in working for. Several years ago, we sold a house to the CEO of a very prestigious small children’s hospital. We had a friend who was interested in potentially working at that hospital, but it was incredibly difficult to get a job there. When he learned that we knew somebody who’d love to work there, he started beaming, because he knew that we would be very nice to him in an attempt to make this referral. At least that was the sense I got, and he was right. This guy was a perfect example of all the places you find people with which to network. Our friend told us she wanted to work at this hospital. We happened to meet someone who worked at that hospital and put the referral together. This was job networking at work. Being referable means being passionate about your job. You want to be in a position where your interest in the subject matter is something you’re passionate about. As I have said several times, it is of utmost importance that you’re in a career that taps into your interest and makes use of your strengths. You should feel enthused about your industry, because when that’s the case, this stuff comes naturally. That is what you want. Because that is what you’re going to do to be referable, and when you call any of these people and ask if they can refer you to a job, they’re going to think of you. Or, if they just see you operating out there, they’re going to think of you whenever there is a job available. In the legal publishing industry, one woman I know is incredibly professional. She’s very efficient and does a very good job. For years, she’s been dealing with all sorts of people in the industry. She gets calls, literally, once a month because they hear about a job opening or something coming up and they think she might be interested. She’s probably been at the same job for a couple of decades now and never left, but she’s always getting people proactively going to her and saying, “I know about this job and that job.” The reason? She’s just so passionate about and professional with what she does. You need to be positioned as someone who’s incredibly professional, very good at what they do, and also has a unique edge against competitors. What do I mean by unique edge? A unique edge means somebody can say something about you personally that makes you seem very good and better than the rest. An example would be that I know somebody who’s incredibly detail-oriented and is in a job that requires him to be detail oriented. When I think about that person, he is the most detail-oriented person I know and that’s what I would say if I referred him. In business it’s called a “unique selling proposition.” A unique selling proposition is whatever sets a product or service apart. For example, Avis has been ranked number two. Their unique selling proposition might be “We try harder because we’re not number one.” When you hear stories about people who have become successful, a theme that tends to run beneath is that person is constantly improving and getting better at what they do. Here’s an example. Let’s say I want to hire an architect and I went into that architect’s house. If I didn’t see any signs of their interest in architecture I’d realize it wasn’t a passion for them and just a job. As a result, I probably wouldn’t want to hire that architect. The same thing goes for people in every profession. You want somebody who’s interested, committed, and has a visceral passion and interest in the subject matter. You want that and need that. I would almost go so far as to say that to be referable you need that. I believe the single most important characteristic, in terms of your being referable, is for you to understand that you need to come across as someone who’s exceptionally committed to what you do. Not only that, but you must also show you’re continually improving and constantly getting better and better. One of the reasons this is so important is that when somebody refers you to a job, the person that’s referring you has some bearing on them, too. By that I mean the referrer is putting himself out there. In the process of putting himself out there, he’s showing that he believes in you and is putting his credibility on the line. By being referable, you’re putting yourself in a position where people are saying to themselves, “Is this the type of person that I want to refer?” You have to be someone who shows a lot of commitment to whatever kind of work you’re doing. Always put yourself out there and try to put a positive spin on the work you’re doing. Always be someone that looks like they’ve done a good job and wants to do a good job. Asking for Referrals Who can refer you to certain jobs? The first group is friends. Every single friend and acquaintance of yours can potentially refer you to a job. That is why it’s important that when you’re around people, you are sure to display the characteristics and personality traits that make you referable. Make a list of the people you know. The average person knows about two hundred and fifty people who can refer them to a job. It may seem difficult to believe that the number is as high as it is, but in actuality, when you start considering all the people in your life, it really isn’t that outrageous of a claim. Now ask yourself what kind of employer you’re seeking. By knowing what sort of employer you want, you can concentrate on how you’re going to get the right kind of referrals. In terms of knowing that employer, you want to know things like the size of the employer, location, and what industry the employer is in. Knowing these things in terms of your target employer will help put you in touch with the people who can offer you those referrals. Knowing this information is going to help you target your search. For example, if you’re in another part of the country from where you want to work, you need to find people in that location who have some regional contacts. If you want to go to work for a very small company, you need to find people who have contacts within that industry and you need to have different strategies than you would if you were looking for a larger employer where it would be easier to find people. It’s important to write down and have a good idea of the exact type of employer you’re seeking. If you have that information at your disposal, it will be much easier when you start going through your list of people who can refer you. The next question you need to ask is, who can refer you to people within your target employer? As you might remember, these are all the people you discovered in the section Building Your Network. I want you to understand that if you tell 10 friends that you’re looking for a job, those are 10 people out there helping you. If you did the same thing with relatives, those are another 10 people or 25 people. If you have 100 friends, you have 100 friends helping you. With previous coworkers and current coworkers, those are more people helping you. Each of these people magnifies your job search in an incredible way. Another type of person that can help you would be a customer. If you’re selling something or you’re in a certain business, they can assist you as well. Neighbors like to help each other. Someone who lives in the same neighborhood as you or those you see each day can also be a great source of help. People that go to religious services at your church or synagogue are also a great source of referrals. I’ve been in religious services before and someone got up and talked about how someone who’s a member of the group is looking for a job and asked if anyone can help. Usually, other people stand up and offer some sort of help. It’s amazing to me. That’s a great source of jobs. Any group that has any sort of shared interest, whether it’s your friends, relatives, past coworkers, current coworkers, customers, neighbors, or church or synagogue members can be great. Another thing is fellow members of an association, whether it’s fraternal, social, industrial, charitable, or whatever, can also help you with referrals. It’s very important that you let those people know you’re looking, too. Another incredible source of referrals is if you know any people who are considered leaders or celebrities in your community. Local or national, it doesn’t matter. Anybody that has a lot of influence typically knows a lot of people. Also, it’s always good for you to have some sort of relationship with people who are considered leaders in your industry or local area, because they have access to all sorts of things that can help you. Another overlooked source of referrals is if you know anybody who’s a writer for a newspaper or someone along those lines. These sorts of people are typically very well networked because they need sources and are a great source of referrals. Then there are very benign people. People you would not expect who can refer you, like grocery store cashiers, cab drivers, and all sorts of people like that. There are numerous people out there who can provide you with referrals. I realize it sounds crazy to say grocery store cashiers, cab drivers, and dry cleaners, but in New York there is even a dating service run by a taxi driver who, when he sees people that look compatible, fixes them up. It’s incredible. Grocery store cashiers typically know a lot of people in the community, because they interact with them every day. You need to understand that there are many people out there who can provide you with solid referrals on a consistent basis. Another thing I want to talk to you about, and I’ve talked to you about it briefly, is setting the stage for referrals. By “setting the stage for referrals,” I mean make sure you’re consistently referable. You know the type of employer you’re seeking. You know people and have created some sort of list of those that can refer others to you. Then you must set the stage for referrals. How do you do that? What is the most effective way to set the stage for referrals? One of the first things, I believe, is to just make sure you have truly excellent references. You can’t always have good references, but it’s important that you acquire the best references that you can. People like to refer experts, and people like to refer those who are excited about the things that they do. I believe it’s very important that you’re excited about what you do for a living. That is the kind of person who is referable. When someone is very excited and animated about what they do, others want to refer them. If you are just so-so and don’t really care too much about what you’re doing, you’re obviously going to be much less referable than if you’re very passionate and completely exuberant about your work. When you ask someone for a referral, it’s always nice to take the person out to dinner and offer to pay for it. Maybe don’t even ask anything from them during the dinner. Just subtly bring up the fact that you’re unemployed or unhappy in your job and if they know of any open positions, you’d appreciate it. Explain that you’re out there networking. It’s a classic technique and it’s something that would be very effective for you to do. In order to get referrals, stay in contact with people. You need to build a “file of facts” of sorts for all the people that I mentioned. This will help you keep them all organized and clearly know who everybody is. Finally, always tell the person that’s referring you that you’ll speak positively of them. Say “I think so highly of you, could you help me out with this?” This one little thing is very powerful. The reason it’s so powerful is that when you tell someone you think highly of her, it’s like she’s an advocate for you to whomever she referred you to. I think that is something that would be very meaningful and something you should think strongly about in terms of your use of referrals. In looking for referrals, I think one of the most exciting things is getting out there and meeting people. When you meet people, it’s not difficult to set the stage for a referral. If you ever watch these master networkers, you’ll see there are lots of ways to do it. There is a good example in a book that I recommend you look at. It’s called The Referral of a Lifetime. The gist of the book is this: when you meet people and want a referral, ask them three questions. First, when you meet people, ask them what they do and then listen to the answer. You have to appear interested. You can’t just ask somebody what they do and not listen to the answer. You have to appear as if that information feels relevant. That’s not just good networking, it’s good etiquette. If you show you’re interested, people will talk more. Then ask what it is they like most about what they do. That forces people to think. One of the fundamental principles of human relations is that people love to talk about themselves. Everyone is the most important person in the world in his or her own mind. It’s very important to move away from that psychology, but that’s a whole separate discussion. When you’re trying to set yourself up for referrals and being referred to jobs and so forth, it’s exceptionally important, from a networking perspective, to allow people to talk about themselves and to pack interest in it. There are different types of listening. There is passive listening where you kind of go, “Uh huh.” There is listening where you look like you are very interested but you’re not really sure what the person is saying. The kind of listening I’m talking about is acting as if you’re really interested in whatever the person is interested in. When I say acting, I don’t mean pretending. I mean actually getting inside that person and seeing where he or she is coming from. Now I’ve seen people do it in a fake way, but you need to make sure that you do it in a way that is very genuine while still letting people talk. Ask them, “What is it you do? What do you like most about that? If you could start over, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?” or “What would you do differently?” These kinds of questions are very good for getting at the heart of people. After you ask those questions and the person has talked—and let them talk for three or four minutes—say something that is important like, “I enjoyed meeting you. Why don’t we stay in touch?” Get their card or whatever and send them a short thank you note saying you enjoyed meeting them and that sort of thing. “You seem very interesting. I’d love to stay in touch with you.” Another thing I want to say in terms of setting the stage for a referral is, before you actually even ask for a referral, many times a really good strategy is to do something in advance. You might do someone a favor. Always try to do something in advance for people and have the stage set in such a way that people want to help you. So, you might take the person out to dinner and in the course of the dinner, if they ask you how your career is going, tell them. That is a very important thing. Before you ask for a referral, do something for the person. One of the things you want to be very careful with is not spacing your request for a referral too closely to asking for something. If you haven’t had contact with the person in six months and then you do something for them and two hours, a day, or two days later you ask them for a referral, your efforts will come across as disingenuous. Do something with the person. Talk to them. Have a telephone conversation. Then let the information come out that you may be looking for a referral. This is the logic you must follow when asking for referrals. It’s also good to know when people are likely to be the most receptive. This is important, because people are typically receptive at certain times. For example, I tend to work very hard in the morning and in the early afternoon. My wife knows that’s not a time when I’m receptive to various requests for help and that sort of thing. She’ll ask me at night when I’m relaxed. I want to briefly go back to the people you can target for referrals. One of the important things about these people is that you need to determine which people are those that have a good relationship with the employer you’re already interested in. Let’s go through an example of meeting people making a referral and how that’s done. A lot of this is going to come from you internally and what you feel like you’re going to do, but this is a point where a lot of people get uncomfortable and don’t know how to go about it. We talked about identifying the type of employer you’re seeking. We also talked about identifying people who can help you. Then we talked about setting the stage for referrals in a couple of different ways. The next thing I’d like to talk about is how to ask individual people for a referral. One of the easiest ways to do this is to just ask people. Don’t be bashful. Asking outright is the best thing to do when you are with someone you know. Most times, you can’t get a referral if you don’t ask for it. You can certainly set the stage, but I recommend just asking people the same questions that we talked about above when dealing with something you already know personally. Go through your list and just ask people, “Who do you know in the _____ industry?” Then ask some friends, relatives, coworkers, and customers. Of course, the blank is the kind of industry you want to be a part of or the job you want to do. That is a very important component to it. Another thing to remember is every time you meet somebody new, it’s a good idea to ask them for a referral at some point. It doesn’t have to be during the actual first meeting, but it’s a good idea to ask people for referrals anyway at some point in your relationship. If you’re asking someone for a referral, make sure you’ll make the person referring you look good to others. This is vital. Referrers, in many cases, are trying to look good to the person they refer you to. When asking people for referrals, a lot of times people will say, “I don’t know anybody.” Go through the person’s list of friends, neighbors, and relatives with her to see if you can find a connection. Someone did that with me once and it actually worked. I was able to tell him about someone who could help once he had jogged my memory. Those that are good at getting referrals systematically stay in touch with people. There are all sorts of people out there that they know and by staying in touch with them, they won’t let relationships die. That is very important, and I think their ability to systematically keep in touch with people is one of the best-kept secrets of some of the best politicians and networkers out there. In January, they may give a New Year’s card. On the Fourth of July, they may send a Fourth of July card. On Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving card, and so forth. And another thing: after you meet people, it’s a good idea to send a thank you note. This will make you more memorable to potential referrers. I hope this diagram here can help you in terms of uncovering hidden assets and opportunities that you have. It’s very important to realize that getting referrals and having people refer you to others is something that is going to make a major difference in your job search and in your career. In some industries, having referrals is the name of the game. You have to have a referral if you want to land a job. In many cases, the employer won’t know anything else about you. The important thing is that the person suddenly has some information, based on that exchange, and can feel positive about you. Etiquette There are some points of etiquette that go along with getting referrals and using an informal network. First and foremost after meeting people, send them thank-you notes, as I mentioned above. I don’t think there is anything wrong necessarily with asking for a referral the first time you meet them, though generally, you’re better off waiting. It’s easy to do it right away and much harder to follow up. The follow-up makes people feel good and makes a difference in how you’re perceived. Another thing that is important is that you should give referrals to other people as well. Always try to give back to the people who helped you. When you give other people referrals, you reap what you sow and those referrals will come back to you. Also, keep in touch. It’s absolutely crucial to send out cards on the holidays around December. It’s a good idea, though not 100% necessary, to send a card on the Fourth of July. People like that. It separates you. Sending out Thanksgiving cards and staying in touch with people is very important. When you fail to stay in touch with people, you break that bond a little bit. In closing, I just want you to understand that referrals are an incredible way to get jobs. It’s something you need to integrate into your strategy. Many people use Online Data Contact Manager or something similar to keep track of everyone. Regardless of what you use to manage your contacts, make an effort to utilize it more to fully benefit from referrals.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/informal-networks-and-referrals/feed/ 0 How to Use Social Networking, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter in Your Job Search http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/how-to-use-social-networking-linkedin-facebook-and-twitter-in-your-job-search/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/how-to-use-social-networking-linkedin-facebook-and-twitter-in-your-job-search/#comments Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:12:36 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=13679 13679 In Los Angeles—like most major cities–if you go to a major auto dealer you will notice a group of ten or more salespeople, usually men, who are standing together (smoking, drinking coffee, gossiping, and so forth) waiting for you. In some dealerships it is actually quite intimidating. Less than three minutes after your getting out of the car, a salesman will put his cigarette out and start to approach you. The salespeople stand there all day and wait. They also joke among themselves:
  • “That one’s hot; why do you always get the hot ones?”
  • “That guy’s got a printout and knows our costs. You’re screwed.”

The banter among these guys goes back and forth all day long. I’ve actually listened in on them before because it’s amusing and instructive.  The salespeople go to sales meetings, are hired and fired quickly, and are trained to close deals. They take people into their little cubicles and offices and attempt to get them to pay as much money as possible for the cars. They have all sorts of games to sell cars that they like to play among themselves. In short, the salespeople are extremely focused on the customers who show up and are right in front of them. I used to look at cars a lot. I’ve given my card to salespeople before. Only once or twice has the man ever followed up with me after meeting me. The salesmen who did follow up simply left me a message and nothing more. No second phone calls. No follow-up letters. Nothing. I get a new car every few years. A few years ago, I had a luxury car. Then I got a sports car. Then I got a pickup truck. I love cars and always have. However, in all my years of buying cars, I have never heard from the salesperson after I purchased the car.  Instead, I can only assume they feel like it is more productive to stand under the awning of the dealership waiting for the next stranger to drive up.

  • A few years ago, I purchased a Ford truck. I like Fords.  If the salesperson who sold me the truck had called me and asked me if I was interested in purchasing a Lincoln Continental a few years later, I probably would have bought one. When I go to New York (or any other major city) I always get picked up in those Lincolns. I like them. I’ve checked them out online several times and would like to own one.  Yet a salesperson has never contacted me about that.
  • A few cars ago, I had a Mercedes. I gave it to my wife and she drove it until it had 100,000-plus miles on it.  Eventually it started to have all sorts of maintenance problems. We went and bought another one at a dealership not too far from our house. In the years that I had that original Mercedes, I never heard from the salesman who sold it to me. Had he stayed in touch with me I would have bought the second car from him instead of the other salesman from whom we purchased the car.

I could list numerous examples like this with just cars. However, this idea applies to everything. Whether it is clothes, electronics, real estate, or otherwise—most businesses (and salespeople) I have done business with in the past simply have forgotten about me after selling me something. More than just this, the businesses have forgotten about me after not even selling me something and my expressing interest in them.  In the case of the auto salesmen, it is as if it they have the idea that standing on the side of the road is a more productive exercise than contacting past prospects, past customers, and others eager to buy. In your job search and career, the desires and circumstances of the employers you may be interested in working for are constantly changing.  By merely showing regular interest and continually communicating with an employer you would like to work for, you dramatically increase your chances of getting employed and improving your circumstances (no matter what they are)  if and when the employer is ready to “pull the trigger” and hire someone like you. Good businesses know how to stay in touch with and constantly communicate with their potential clients and past customers. In fact, the best businesses are generally masters at this. Check your e-mail from today and the past few days. How many successful businesses that you have frequented in the past are e-mailing you information? I bet it is a lot. Here is a list of some of the companies that I have purchased from in the past that send me at least a few e-mails each week trying to sell me something:

  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • MSN
  • Apple
  • Orbitz
  • Adobe
  • Restoration Hardware
  • Dell
  • Neiman Marcus

In fact, some of these companies are sending me e-mails on almost a daily basis.  What do all these companies have in common? They are all respected companies.  I DO NOT get spammed on a weekly basis by unrespected companies—just the respected ones.  I want to make sure I highlight this again: I do not get SPAMMED by unsuccessful companies, just successful ones. Yes, I do get e-mails about stuff like Viagra and so forth from who knows who—but when it comes to getting spam e-mail, I generally am only getting it from successful companies I have done business with in the past and/or signed up on one of their mailing lists. Why do you think this is? I would venture to say that successful companies have it together enough to know that spamming me is a good use of their time. They are much more likely to make a sale by spamming me than they are by chasing new business.  People who are already familiar with them are much better prospects than people who are not. This is something that smart businesses and the people who run them understand. In contrast, when I frequent a small, lesser-known brand, the brand typically forgets about me completely. I rarely hear from them again after making the purchase. They just do not have their act together enough to stay in touch with me. This is a reflection (in my opinion) that the company is not large enough and successful enough to have its act together in such a way that it is able to consistently develop a relationship with me by e-mailing me. E-mails from lesser-known brands are infrequent and sporadic at best. Prior to e-mail, there was direct mail.  Direct mail eventually became so sophisticated that companies like Victoria’s Secret started sending people a new catalogue DAILY if they thought the cost-benefit analysis of designing, printing, and mailing you a catalogue made sense.  They would “run the numbers” and send you as many catalogues as they could if they predicted they would come out ahead based on your previous spending patterns.  Make no mistake about it—junk mail makes sense for big companies, and that is why they send so much of it. If I am getting spammed by respected companies like Yahoo! and Apple, do you think there is anything wrong with your staying in touch with:

  • Companies you have interviewed with in the past and who know you
  • People you have worked with in the past and are now at other companies
  • Companies and people you meet in the course of doing business

I had to get off LinkedIn because I was receiving so many requests from people looking for jobs–it became too much to handle, and most of the people I did not know.  But LinkedIn is an amazing tool. You should be using services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and so forth to stay connected to people. This keeps you in the forefront of their minds. Out of sight means out of mind. A few years ago I received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone I had not heard from in years. I thought to myself: “Why is this guy contacting me? We dislike each other anyway …” But then I thought about him and realized I knew someone who would be interested in meeting and talking to him about a project. As a consequence of this, something productive happened in both of their careers. Every employer you have ever interviewed with (successfully or unsuccessfully) and everyone you know should be contacted on a regular basis. Follow the lessons of what the most successful companies do and stay in touch with people. This is the lesson of the largest companies out there. They do not let people forget about them, and they want to be there when you decide to purchase something. Employers are no different from a consumer. They are periodically in the market to purchase something (you). It is important that you are there when the employer is ready to make a purchase. Like people, employers are most comfortable purchasing “known quantities” and brands they are most familiar with. Here, by continually staying in touch with people you are interested in working for, you are much more likely to be hired when the time comes. THE LESSON You greatly increase your chances of being hired by maintaining constant contact with employers for whom you would like to work. Services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media are invaluable tools to connect with potential employers. Use these tools to stay in contact with every employer with whom you have interviewed (successfully or unsuccessfully), and everyone you know; maintaining such a high level of contact will make you much more likely to be hired when the time comes.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/how-to-use-social-networking-linkedin-facebook-and-twitter-in-your-job-search/feed/ 0 Ducks, Semi Trucks, Upscale Doctors’ Offices, and Your Destiny http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/ducks-semi-trucks-upscale-doctors-offices-and-your-destiny/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/ducks-semi-trucks-upscale-doctors-offices-and-your-destiny/#comments Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:20:34 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=5050 5050 I have been keeping ducks as pets for some time now. I purchased the ducks when they were full grown, from a woman who raised them with chickens, and I migrated them into the little collection of farm animals that I have. These ducks were born and raised on dry land. They are perfectly happy waddling around on dry land; however, I am sure they would be happier if they were swimming in a pond, doing what ducks naturally do. Nevertheless, these ducks are happy, since they are fed well and have a lot of room to move around.

The few times that I have left the gate open for the ducks they have waddled out, looked around, and then found the pool and jumped right in.

  • The chickens I keep have never jumped into the pool.
  • The goats I keep have never jumped into the pool.
  • The sheep I keep have never jumped into the pool.

Only the ducks have jumped into the pool. What do you think a goat would do if it were thrown in the water? Do you think it would be happy? What about the sheep or the chickens? It is great fun seeing the ducks jump into the pool. They start quacking, splashing and swimming about, obviously enjoying themselves in all respects. They could not be in a better environment. Once they are in the water, their dispositions change. They move a little faster, quack a little louder, and are clearly more content.

The reason the ducks jump right into the pool is that being in water is in their nature and it is something that was programmed into them long before they were born. Despite being raised on dry land their entire life, these ducks know instinctively that the water is a place where they can go and swim. Ducks are meant to swim in water and this is just what comes naturally to them.

I drive around in a Ford F-450 pickup truck. This truck is meant to carry a ton of weight and it is meant to tow huge loads. I usually drive the truck without any loads in it, though. Consequently, the truck is always very bouncy and extremely uncomfortable. The few times I have towed things, the truck has actually ridden very smoothly–like a luxury car. The reason the truck rides so much better when it is pulling a load is that this is exactly what it is made to do. Some engineers sat down and designed the vehicle with this primary intention, and they achieved their desired result.

Have you ever been in a semi truck that is not pulling a trailer? I have. I have relatives who drive semis for a living. The first time one of them picked me up in a semi truck without a trailer attached, I could not believe how bumpy the ride was. I was bouncing all over the place, and every word out of my mouth was a vibration. Like my ridiculous pickup truck, a semi truck is not made to drive around without a trailer. You would go crazy if you had to drive a semi truck around without a trailer all the time. The semi is designed and engineered to have a giant trailer attached to it. This is its nature. This is what it is meant to be doing.

You too have something inside of you that tells you what you are meant to be doing. If you are in a career or living a life wherein you feel that something is wrong, the chances are that you are doing something that does not come naturally to you. You see, every person has some extraordinary and profound gift inside–some incredible talent that comes naturally. You are no exception. There is a profession out there that you could do remarkably well, and feel incredibly comfortable doing. I have spent my career talking to people looking for jobs, and I am very involved in this industry. I have yet to meet a person who does not have some sort of unique natural skill or ability, nor someone who could not undertake some specialized profession with happiness and comparative ease.

I am not saying you have to be the best at something; I am simply saying that there are things that come naturally to you, things that do not come naturally to everyone else. Every duck knows and enjoys swimming. A duck does not swim because he is better than the other ducks at swimming; he swims because this is what comes naturally to him, and he enjoys it. What do you enjoy? I am sure there is something out there that you enjoy, which comes naturally to you. There is something for everyone.

I meditate on most days. When you meditate, you often go back in time and revisit episodes from when you were growing up. For some reason, most of the stuff that comes up for me is from when I was eighteen or younger. I am sure you remember what it was like back then for you too. Some of the lessons from when we were younger are so simple, yet we carry their extremely profound messages with us into adulthood. I remember how I hated science when I was in school, although math was okay, and I loved literature. Had I chosen to become a scientist, it would have been a horrible thing. For some reason I have always disliked science, and it does not come naturally to me. If I were a scientist I would do everything I could to write about science, instead of performing experiments and doing whatever else the job entails. This is just what is in my nature.

When I was in college, there were kids whose parents pushed them to be doctors. These guys hated the science classes they were taking and usually got Bs and Cs in them. In psychology, English, or other classes, they would excel. But if you told these people that they should be in a profession other than in the medical field, one that made use of their gifts and allowed them to do well, they would tell you that they had been studying all their life to be a doctor. Imagine how many people are in professions and are doing jobs they hate, because they believe they should be doing something they do not enjoy.

I am a former lawyer. A large proportion of the attorneys I know hate their jobs. Most make good livings but are afraid to do anything else because they believe they are doing what they should be doing. But if being an attorney is not in their nature and they do not like it, what are they doing with themselves?

Whenever I meet and spend time with doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, executives and others, the one thing I keep hearing over and over again is that they all want to start their own businesses. I can scarcely leave the house for a few days without hearing this, as I meet various people throughout the week. It is as if the entire world is bent on starting a business, and at the same time everyone is making excuses for not having a business. There is nothing wrong with someone wanting to start a business, of course. The problem is that when I hear this, it is usually coming from people who are already doing something that they are very good at, which they enjoy; yet these people seem to believe they should be moving into something that they do not enjoy, for one reason or another.

Recently, I met a doctor who told me that he wanted to build a huge chain of clinics in expensive, upscale neighborhoods. The doctor had a business plan he wanted to share with me and was bragging that the clinics could be making millions of dollars a year within a few years.

“Do you enjoy being a doctor?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I love it. I cannot wait to get to work most days. I feel like I am in the right profession.” He began to perk up when he started telling me about how much he enjoyed being a doctor.

“Why did you become a doctor?” I asked.

“Because I always excelled at science, and deep down I feel very compassionate and caring toward others,” he said.

“What does that have to do with managing all sorts of people, taking huge risks, firing and hiring, leveraging yourself with a bunch of real estate, marketing your medical services, managing vendors, and purchasing medical equipment and making enough money to keep everything going and growing?” I asked.

There is always a moment or two of a pause when I ask a question like this. Then the person says something like “I can do it. That stuff is easy!” Then the person generally gets a little uncomfortable and walks away.

Most of the people who start businesses like this fail. I am not saying it is impossible to start a business; it is not. But people who start businesses that become successful have generally had a passion for doing the things that go along with running a business, for their entire lives. It is natural to them. People need to focus on what comes naturally to them.

Having your own business requires a completely different set of skills from what is required for most jobs. It requires a different mind-set from being an excellent employee. Most people know instinctively whether or not they would be good at a certain job. There is nothing wrong with the doctor being a doctor. There is nothing wrong with the doctor who really deep down does not want to be a doctor as much as he wants to run a chain of clinics. The point is, however, that the doctor who wants to run a chain of clinics needs to make sure he feels as comfortable with all the risks, administration, and other responsibilities involved in running a chain of clinics, as he would be simply being a doctor. If the doctor were to start a huge chain of clinics, he would no longer be able to spend the majority of his time being compassionate toward others. Instead, he would be bogged down with all the issues that go along with running clinics.

Think of the duck on dry land. The duck is perfectly happy waddling around on dry land, but it is much happier when it is in the water. You see, deep down, there is something that innately excites each of us. You need to follow your instincts and to do the things that excite you the most–those things that come most naturally to you.

There was recently a very interesting article called “Companies Headhunters Avoid,” in Business Week, about companies that have managers with specific skills that do not transfer well to other companies. I found the following portion of the article very interesting:

Recruiters also singled out companies that are widely viewed as successful. Consider Coca-Cola. The conclusion among headhunters is that the very attributes that make Coke a great company—an iconic brand and an unmatched global distribution system—also make it too easy for young managers to rise without having to develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete in other arenas. “Coke is a great company with great brands,” says Joe D. Goodwin, an executive recruiter based in Atlanta. But Goodwin says he can’t recall any Coke alumnus who successfully ran a major company elsewhere. “People tend to get caught up in the Coke bureaucracy and get dead-ended in their careers,” he says. “My advice is that unless someone intends to make a career of Coke, don’t stay too long.” Granted, working at Coke can make you comfortable—the stock has yielded a 24.8% total return over the past five years, vs. a 2.4% return for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index—but recruiters say it may not make you management material anywhere else. A spokesman says alumni have gone on to successful stints at places like Home Depot (HD) and Clorox (CLX), though the goal is to keep them at Coke.

For all of the vaunted “academy companies” such as General Electric (GE), IBM, (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), revered for honing executive talent that thrives elsewhere, a significant number of companies are seen as weak in that realm. They may do well financially, but they can’t seem to cultivate leaders others want to poach. Whether it’s their quirkiness, poor leadership development, or political culture, these players have become the corporate equivalents of the Hotel California: You can check in and enjoy your stay, but the risk is that you can’t leave. Three of the companies named as problematic by recruiters—General Mills (GIS), AT&T (T), and Intel (INTC)—made this year’s ranking of best places to start a career. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_37/b4146042031508.htm

In discussing Coke and various companies, the article made it clear that certain companies have people with specific skills that do not work well elsewhere. Some companies may attract and cultivate very good bureaucrats, but not necessarily leaders. This is fine. People inside of bureaucratic organizations can make exceptional livings, and a good proportion of top executives in most companies are more bureaucratic than leadership or entrepreneurial minded. A person from a vicious dog-eat-dog company would be uncomfortable working for a company like Coke and vice versa. Taking people out of a bureaucratic environment where they are comfortable, and putting them in a more entrepreneurial environment, is not smart.

Several years ago, I hired a woman who had formerly been a public school teacher in a heavily unionized school district. In her former job, she had had prescribed break times, a limit on how many hours she could work in a day, and all sorts of other similar rules and procedures to follow. When she began working for our company, we had none of these things, and the woman practically had a nervous breakdown. She ended up quitting, citing the lack of procedures as her main motivation to leave. Incredibly, she filed a complaint with the unemployment office, and in her unemployment claim she cited that a lack of detailed procedures was the reason for her quitting; it had allegedly made her workplace unbearable and intolerable. The woman’s unemployment claim was denied, of course, but it really showed me how important procedures and so forth are to some people. As an aside, if I worked in the heavily unionized school system with all of its procedures and policies, I would probably go crazy! Certain environments and types of work come naturally to each of us.

If you are doing a job, or are in an environment that does not come naturally to you, it is always going to be a struggle for you, and you are never going to be happy. Regardless of how much you work at it, you are never going to like what you are doing. Some jobs are so boring and incompatible with certain people that the people may develop medical problems. Other jobs might drive us to visit psychologists for counseling, or psychiatrists to prescribe us antidepressants–to keep our spirits up. If you are in this situation (and many people are), then you should seriously reconsider your current job and career path. You need to be doing what you enjoy, and you need to make sure it is something that comes naturally to you.

Do not be like a duck on dry land.

THE LESSON Do something that comes naturally to you; if you feel there is something wrong in your life or career, it is probably because you are engaged in work that does not come naturally to you.. No matter what your interests, there is work out there at which you would excel and with which you would be comfortable. You must find work that you enjoy, and make sure that it comes naturally to you.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/ducks-semi-trucks-upscale-doctors-offices-and-your-destiny/feed/ 2 Mike Tyson, Distractions, Your Career and Life http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/mike-tyson-distractions-your-career-and-life/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/mike-tyson-distractions-your-career-and-life/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:20:50 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=5090 5090 I saw the most interesting documentary on Mike Tyson recently, James Toback’s Tyson. A review of the film in Time magazine relates:
At first he was a variation on the proverbial 97-pound weakling: an overweight street kid from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. He got beaten up regularly by the local toughs—”Very few of them,” he says, “are functioning adults right now”—who lured him into street crime. As a 12-year-old in a detention home he was discovered by Cus d’Amato, who had trained and managed Floyd Patterson to the heavyweight boxing title in the ’50s. Cus saw potential in this soft-spoken junior thug, and Mike went along with the program because “I was afraid of being physically humiliated in the streets again.” In d’Amato, Tyson found the father he never had. “He broke me down and rebuilt me,” Tyson says of his coach, who adopted him, raised him with the d’Amato family in the Catskills and gave the boy focus and purpose as a boxer. Tyson was an apt pupil: he obsessively studied old films of boxing legends, learned the spiritual side of the warrior mentality and, he says, “restrained myself from having sex for about five years.” He tore through the amateur ranks, knocking out one opponent in a record eight seconds, and was heavyweight champ before he was 21. (His mentor died just before the big fight.) Those victories helped him realize that “I don’t have to worry about anyone bullying me again.” http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1893622-1,00.html

The most interesting thing to me about the documentary was listening to Tyson talk about how d’Amato trained him to become a boxer. Instead of defining boxing to Tyson as a mere physical conquest, the coach taught him that boxing was a spiritual conquest. As Tyson trained with d’Amato, the coach would constantly drop suggestions to him on how to increase his self-confidence and his self-image as he boxed. These suggestions would be short little blurbs about how Tyson was the best, the strongest, and so forth. I found this part of the movie completely fascinating because d’Amato was changing Tyson’s self-image and the messages that Tyson was hearing in his mind. Instead of hearing “you are a poor thug from the Bronx,” Tyson began hearing other messages about how he was a champion and how great he was. One of my favorite d’Amato quotes is, “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.” One of the biggest distractions that most of us face comes not from others, but from ourselves. Most people out there are continually questioning themselves on what they are capable of. They do not believe they are smart; they do not believe they are attractive; they do not believe they are clever; they do not believe they have the ability to achieve the things they want to achieve; they do not believe they are going to be promoted; they do not believe they are going to get the job; they do not believe they are going to make the sale; they do not believe other people will like them; they simply do not believe in themselves. Many of us are cowards. We run away from what we are actually capable of. What do you believe? If you are constantly distracted by your insecurities and your doubts, you are never going to get where you want to go. It just will not happen, because you will not allow it to. If you are not confident and at peace with who you are, the negative voices inside your head will keep you distracted. The miracle of what d’Amato accomplished with Tyson was that he was able to change the voices inside of Tyson’s head from being distractions that were keeping him down and holding him back, to whispers of encouragement that drove him forward to become a champion. If d’Amato could do this with Tyson, couldn’t we all do this with the voices in our heads? Some time ago, I was at a retreat. All those in attendance were broken up into groups of ten or eleven people each and were asked to go find certain items that were placed throughout an obstacle course, as a group, and then get back to the base camp as quickly as possible. “Do not worry about anything except finding the items, staying together, and returning to base camp,” we were told. Our group was set loose, along with six or seven other groups, on a piece of land that was no larger than the size of a football field. As we foraged along, various leaders who were supposed to be acting as guides (and were not participating in the scavenger hunt), began appearing on the obstacle course telling us they had found something and to come look at it; others pretended to be injured; others pretended to want to tell us a secret about another group; and some requested we approach them to get some piece of advice. What should have taken each group less than ten minutes to accomplish, instead ended up taking around thirty minutes, because everyone kept getting distracted. Several times our group forgot the basic idea that what we needed to do was to gather up a few things and return to the base. Instead, we became incredibly distracted by the things going on around us. Every group did. The lesson of this exercise was that the more you get distracted, the less you will be able to reach your goals. You simply cannot make the most of your career and life when you constantly allow yourself to get distracted from what you are trying to achieve. One of the most important things you can do is look away from the things that

  • distract you from becoming a better person,
  • distract you from doing better in your job,
  • distract you from being healthy,
  • distract you from succeeding,
  • distract you from being happy,
  • distract you from achieving your goals,
  • distract you from being the person you are capable of being.

Often in the movies you will see a scene in which kids who are growing up in a bad neighborhood are pressured by the other kids in the neighborhood to join a gang or to participate in some kind of negative activity. The kids always face the challenge of having to walk by a group of thugs and not give in to peer pressure. In the movie Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood, for example, a young Vietnamese boy was being pressured to join a gang. Often these types of characters go on to become great musicians, athletes, and so forth. As an audience, we find ourselves rooting for the underdog to find his way out of the darkness and to achieve success. This is the attraction of the Tyson documentary as well. This particular character resonates with us because the people who are able to resist the distractions around them are able to become something better. The ability to resist distractions is incredibly important–more important than many people realize. The better you are at resisting distractions, the better you will do in your career and life. If you had enemies who were trying to distract you from achieving a goal, these enemies would do everything within their power to distract you. They would tell you that you could not do it, that you are not good enough. They would point out every single weakness you had, distracting your mind with these negative ideas, all to undermine your confidence and to diminish your concept of what you are capable of achieving. If someone around you were constantly telling you how bad you were, how ineffective you were, and how little you are capable of achieving, you would probably consider the person an enemy–especially if he or she were repeating this nonsense several times a day. In addition, this is probably not the sort of thing any of us would ever do to another person and, if we did, we would probably consider ourselves horrible people. However, isn’t this what we all do with ourselves constantly? Don’t we all spend a lot of our days questioning what we are capable of, and distracting ourselves from meeting our goals? You will never reach your goals in life if you are distracted by others or by yourself. The only message you need to focus on is the one about how good and capable you are. Create your goal and a game plan, and then fill your mind with the right messages. Do not listen to or concern yourself with negativity or things that distract you. Keep looking ahead. Fill your mind with positive and hopeful messages that will drive you forward to your success. THE LESSON Do not be distracted by your insecurities and doubts, or you will never achieve success because you will not allow it to happen. Focus only on the message about your skills and capabilities. Identify your goals and create a gameplan, and fill your mind with positive and hopeful messages that will drive you towards said goal.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/mike-tyson-distractions-your-career-and-life/feed/ 0 The Benefits of Failure http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/the-benefits-of-failure/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/the-benefits-of-failure/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:26:39 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=14678 14678 Several years ago I was working with a distinguished law firm partner who had been given a few months to find a new job by his existing firm. The partner had not looked for a job in probably twenty-five-plus years and I think his confidence was  shaken by losing his job. The attorney was quite marketable and was used to earning close to a $1 million a year, and I knew that he would not have a very difficult time getting another job. I met with him on several occasions and gave him a list of about fifteen good-sized law firms around Los Angeles that I thought I should approach to engage in discussion with him. I was pretty confident that most of the law firms would be happy to speak with him, and I was also confident that he would be able to get offers from at least half of those.  I had been careful to arrange a good mix of firms for him—some were a “stretch” for him (meaning he probably would not get even an interview), others I knew he would be likely to get an interview with, and a few were “back-ups”–thrown into the mix because I wanted to make sure he got a job no matter what happened. The attorney was desperate for a job and would be unemployed within weeks. He was so stunned by getting fired that he had waited several weeks before he approached me to start looking for a job. Nevertheless, I knew he would come out fine. After reviewing my list and spending some time thinking about it, he came back to me and said the only law firm he wanted to approach was the least prestigious, lowest-paying law firm on the list. I did not argue with him and contacted the firm. The firm could not believe its luck that an attorney of his stature was interested in working for them. Within six or seven days he had an offer from the firm paying around $300,000 a year—making him one of the highest-paid attorneys in the small law firm. After he got this offer I tried to encourage him to at least speak with some of the more prestigious law firms in town. Many of these law firms would be capable of offering him a salary of  four times what he had been offered by the small law firm. Moreover, these law firms had bigger clients and more diversified practices, and I was confident that he was better suited to working in one of these law firms. The attorney then said something to me I will never forget: “I am not going to approach those firms and fail. I have a new job now and why should I humiliate myself and risk failing approaching firms I might not get a job with.” What the attorney was saying was that he was afraid of failing. He was taking the path of least resistance in his job search and rather than risk failure, he was choosing to do nothing at all. Given how well known this attorney was—and how distinguished his career had been to date—I was amazed that he feared rejection so much. Because he was afraid of exposing himself to failure, he ended up with a much less prestigious and lower-paying job than he would have otherwise. In essence, he was settling for less than what he was capable of because he did not want to fail. I am not sure what he was worried about. Was he worried that some attorney might say, “We interviewed him and did not hire him”? Is knowing this remark was never uttered something that was worth $750,000 a year in lost income over the course of the rest of his career? I do not know. I think it might have been. I do not think there is anything wrong with fearing failure–but this fear can also imprison us instead of helping us. Many people are literally paralyzed by their fear of failing and, consequently, they end up doing nothing. The more times you fail, the more opportunities you have to succeed. I am always so surprised when I speak with job seekers who apply to a new job maybe every few weeks—despite being unemployed. When you speak to people who are being miserly with their applications, you generally find that they say things like they do not want to “spam” employers with too many applications, only want to apply to the jobs that are a “good fit”—and so forth. Really, though, what is going on is that these people are afraid of being rejected. Each rejection hurts a little, so rather than face rejection, they do nothing at all. When a young child first starts learning how to walk, she spends months falling down before she is able to take her first steps. Imagine if the first time a child tried to walk and failed people around her said “it’s useless!” and gave up on her. The idea of giving up on a baby trying to walk—even after 1,000 attempts–sounds ludicrous. Each time a baby makes another attempt at walking, his legs get a little bit stronger and his balance gets a little better. As time passes, the baby starts to develop more and more confidence and eventually is able to walk. When it comes to children learning to walk, we expect them to fail for months on end until they finally master it. In addition, when toddlers are learning to walk we encourage them and cheer them on. We generally do not make fun of toddlers and scold them for trying. Nor does the child lose confidence. Eventually, the child learns to walk. If success after massive and prolonged failure is something that we have all experienced growing up, why is it that we become so afraid of failure later in life? In life, there really is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback. Many people avoid countless activities because they are terrified of failure. If you do not take action because you are afraid of failure, you will achieve only a fraction of what you are capable of achieving in your life. Not trying at all because you are afraid of failure is an even bigger failure than trying something and not succeeding. With very few exceptions, the most successful people in the world experienced continual failure until they became successful. In fact, very few people ever reach any form of noteworthy success in any endeavor without consistent failure. What these people do differently from others is use failure to inspire them to try harder and change their approach. Many people know what it takes to be successful. They can point to various tasks that need to be done on a consistent basis in order to achieve success. However, knowing what it takes to be successful and taking action are two different things. To get a job, you need to apply for the job. To meet new people, you need to get out. Every time you put yourself on the line you risk failing. The real strength comes from risking failure and taking action. I am sure you know people who know they should change their lives, know how they can change their lives, and they still do not do it. Most often it is fear of failure that is preventing them from taking action and following through. The ability to manage your emotions so you do not fear failure is incredibly important. The ultimate failure is not trying because you are afraid to fail.

Famous Failures

Barbara Walters was told to “stay out of television” in 1957 by a well-known producer. Jack Benny was expelled from high school. Marlon Brando was expelled from military school. Jules Verne wrote a play at age 16 and gathered friends and family together to read his work to them.  The audience’s unexpected laughter prompted Verne to stop reading after the first act and later burn the script.  He later wrote: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Clint Eastwood was fired by Universal studios after his first two movies for not speaking fast enough. Ulysses S. Grant failed as a real estate agent, farmer, US Customs official, and clerk in a store before becoming a general and later president. Burt Reynolds’s first TV series was canceled after one season. He then appeared as a bachelor on the dating game and was never picked. The Beatles were rejected in 1962 by five record labels. George Lucas’s first film flopped in 1971, prompting every major studio to turn down his next movie, American Graffiti. Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. He was later named the greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN. Marilyn Monroe was dropped in 1947 by 20th Century Fox after one year under contract because production chief Darryl Zanuck thought she was unattractive. Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected by twenty-seven publishers and Seuss considered burning the manuscript. The eventual publisher sold 6 million copies. Barbra Streisand’s Broadway debut opened and closed on the same night. Tom Cruise was rejected for a role on the TV show Fame because he was not “pretty enough.” Orville Wright was expelled from the sixth grade for mischievous behavior. Christopher Columbus miscalculated the size of the globe and the width of the Atlantic Ocean and wound up discovering the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas (which he believed to be an island of the Indies), Cuba (which he thought be a part of China), and the Dominican Republic (which he also mistook as part of the Far East). Sylvester Stallone was thrown out of fourteen schools in eleven years. His professors at the University of Miami discouraged him from a career in acting. Stallone was also rejected for roles in the movies Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, and The Godfather. His screenplay for Rocky was also rejected by all but one company, who insisted that if they bought it, he would not act in it. Billy Joel, embarrassed by his first album, Cold Spring Harbor, spent six months playing bar piano in the lounge of the Executive Room in Los Angeles under the pseudonym Bill Martin. Rock Hudson required thirty-eight takes to successfully execute one line in his first movie. After being dropped by 20th Century Fox after six mediocre movies, Humphrey Bogart was fired from a job reading radio playlets for laxatives.  He then earned a living playing chess for fifty cents a round. Dr. Ruth Westheimer never completed high school, had two failed marriages, and worked as a housemaid. Sigmund Freud’s first book only sold six hundred copies and earned him $250 in royalties. Walt Disney’s first cartoon production company went bankrupt. In 1977, Cyndi Lauper was told she would never sing again. She won a Grammy in 1984. Myrna Loy failed her first screen test. She later became Hollywood’s number one female box-office attraction. Elvis Presley’s music teacher at L. C. Humes High School in Memphis gave him a C and told him he couldn’t sing. Jay Leno failed an employment test at Woolworth’s. Billy Crystal was cut from the cast of Saturday Night Live before the show ever premiered. Betty Grable was told by a ballet teacher to give up the idea of ever becoming a dancer. She later became one of the most beloved dancers in Hollywood. Lucille Ball was told that she had no talent and should go home from Murray Anderson’s drama school. Failing to get into any Broadway chorus lines, she worked as a waitress and soda jerk. William Goldman was fired after writing his first screenplay.  He went on to win two Academy Awards for Best Screenplay. John Keats’s first book of poetry in 1817 was a financial failure. Van Halen’s first demo tape was rejected by every major record label. John F. Kennedy lost the election to be president of his freshman class at Harvard. He failed to win a post on the student council as a sophomore and dropped out of Stanford Business School. Thomas Edison was fired from his job working in a telegraph office after one of his experiments exploded. Dustin Hoffman, after failing to work as an actor in New York, worked as a janitor and an attendant in a mental ward. Katie Couric was banned from reading news reports on the air by the president of CNN because of her irritating, high-pitched, squeaky voice. Steve McQueen was fired from his first role, where he had to say only one line, after just four days. He later became the highest-paid actor of the 1960s and 1970s. Ruth Bader Ginsburg received no job offers when she graduated from law school.  She now serves on the US Supreme Court. Mick Jagger was deemed “unsuitable” by the BBC to sing on the radio in 1962. Bachman Turner Overdrive was rejected by twenty-four record companies. F. W. Woolworth’s first store failed.  Later he created the Woolworth empire of stores around the world. Fred Smith received a C on a project at Yale where he outlined a plan for reliable overnight delivery service. He later founded Federal Express based on the same idea. Jerry Lewis had to repeat fifth grade and was expelled from high school. Steven Spielberg’s mediocre grades prevented him from getting accepted to UCLA film school. John Cheever was expelled from high school after failing French, Latin, and Math.  He later won a Pulitzer prize. The Sex Pistols’ first single was dropped by EMI and their second single was banned by the BBC. John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and a dozen publishers. He later wrote The Pelican Brief, The Client, and The Firm, which were all best sellers and were made into movies. Richard Pryor was expelled from high school. During the first year, Coca-Cola sold only 400 Cokes. During his first three years in the automobile business, Henry Ford went bankrupt twice. R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on. Novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published the first of his 564 books. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in the early grades when the teachers decided he could not do the work. President Harry S Truman went broke in the men’s clothing store business he started. Bob Dylan was booed off the stage at his high school talent show. Thomas Edison tried more than 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work. Chester Carlson took his invention to twenty big corporations in the 1940s. After years of rejections, he was able to persuade Haloid, a small Rochester, NY, company, to purchase the rights to his electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became the Xerox corporation. General Douglas MacArthur was denied admission to West Point twice. Buddy Holly was fired from the Decca record label in 1956 by Paul Cohen, who referred to him as “the biggest no-talent I ever worked with.” Academy Award-winning writer, producer, and director Woody Allen failed motion picture production at New York University and City College of New York. He also flunked English at NYU. Wilma Rudolph was born prematurely. At age 4, her survival was in doubt because of scarlet fever and double pneumonia. She was left with a paralyzed leg and told she would never walk again. She later won three  gold medals in Olympic track-and-field competitions. Glenn Cunningham suffered such severe burns when he was 5 years old that doctors told him he would never walk again. In 1934, he set the world record for the mile. Washington Roebling suffered severe brain damage and only had use of his index finger. This didn’t prevent him from building the Brooklyn Bridge. Albert Einstein didn’t start speaking until he was 4 years old. Claude Monet had horrible cataracts.  Fortunately he still became one of the world’s greatest painters. Winston Churchill had a stuttering problem as a child. He later became one of the world’s most respected public speakers. Ludwig von Beethoven was deaf when he wrote some of his best music. Most people wouldn’t think a deaf person could succeed in music. J. S. Bach was the fourth choice for the job of Kapellmeister at Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany. Rudyard Kipling submitted a story to a California newspaper in 1888. The editor replied, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, you just don’t know how to use the English language.” He later won the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature. Randy Travis was rejected by every major record label twice. Robert M. Pirsig received 121 rejection slips before Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was published. It sold 3 million copies. John Huston’s screenplay for Treasure of Sierra Madre elicited the following review from Warner Brothers: “I don’t think you’d be missing anything to pass this up. It’s a draggy tale, unrelieved by either comedy or practical colorful incident. . . . I think we should leave this alone.” That screenplay won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Woody Allen’s screenplay Annie Hall was called a “chaotic collection of bits and pieces that seemed to defy continuity” by a prominent Hollywood film editor.  The screenplay later won four Academy Awards. Babe Ruth holds the major league record for most career strikeouts. Walter Payton never made it to a Division I school to play college football. He later became the NFL’s career rushing yardage leader. Jerry Rice never made it to a Division I school to play college football.  He later became the NFL’s career leader in several receiving categories. In his first twenty years of business, Tom Monaghan went broke twice, lost control of his pizza company, and was sued for trademark violations. His pizza company went on to become Domino’s pizza. Luciano Pavarotti could not read music. He has become one of the leading tenors in the world and still has trouble reading music! THE LESSON Most people are afraid of exposing themselves to failure, and therefore settle for less than what they want or are capable of achieving. Failure to take action due to your fear is itself the biggest failure of all; few people ever reach any degree of success without consistent failure. You must use failure as an inspiration to try harder in the future, and manage your emotions so as not to fear failure and let that fear preclude action.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/the-benefits-of-failure/feed/ 0 Use Personal Stories to Connect with an Employer and Get a Job http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/use-stories-to-get-a-job-and-connect-with-an-employer/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/use-stories-to-get-a-job-and-connect-with-an-employer/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:15:22 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=338 338 Whenever I meet a merchant, the biggest question I often have is how much something costs. Lots of merchants refuse to tell you how much something costs until they have shown you what they are selling and all of its various features. Many merchants also often want to tell you a quick story about the product they are selling. No one is more notorious for doing this than the merchants who sell rugs in the Middle East. I think Middle Eastern rug merchants are about the best salesmen there are. The way these merchants conduct their business is a huge story in itself, about using the power of storytelling to sell product. Storytelling connects the customer with the merchant and the product, creating a bond that often results in a sale and the customer’s appreciation of the rug for years to come. When you walk into a rug shop in the Middle East, the salesman will sit down and spend a lot of time with you, especially if he believes you are looking for something expensive. He will explain the story behind the rug you are interested in. You will learn about how the rug was made and the geographic area it came from. Different lights will be turned on to show you how the rug looks at various shades. You will be shown the rug from numerous angles. Many rug merchants keep a small loom in their shops, which enables you to see up close how the rug was made. rugs 001 You might be offered tea and perhaps even liquor, if it is legal in the country you are in. After an hour or two of discussing the one rug, you might even be offered a snack. The merchant will then proceed to tell you about himself and his family. He will tell you how well and where he lives. He will tell you about the books he likes and dislikes. The merchant will also ask you numerous questions to get to know you. After all this has occurred, you will eventually learn the price of the rug–if you did not ask earlier. I have witnessed this enough times in Turkey and other countries to know that storytelling is an important ritual in the sale of rugs. It is the sort of ritual that has been occurring probably for as long as rugs have been sold. Storytelling can be extremely relevant to your job search and how you market yourself. In fact, if you understand its significance, you are likely to have a great deal of ease getting employed. What the rug merchants are doing when they present you with so much information is telling you exactly what you are getting before they give you a price. What you are getting when you purchase a rug from them is not just a rug but also the tale of the rug, its history, the merchant who sold it to you, and how you came upon the rug shop in your travels. You become significantly connected to the rug you purchase. rugs 005 Many families have owned rugs for generations. They feel connected to these rugs, and a great deal of that has to do with the stories that go along with them. There is an emotional energy that is invested in the rug. I remember the first time I went into a rug shop in the Middle East: I was surprised by how much time the salespeople wanted to spend with me. The salespeople were really selling a connection more than simply a pile of colored wool. I was taken to a casino. I was taken to Turkish teashops to spend time with other customers of the rug sellers. I learned about merchants’ families. The stories that went along with the rugs (which I would tell again and again to friends) were really something special. They are why I cherish the rugs I bought there, to this day. How many times have you heard someone tell a story about why they bought something? When people talk about a purchase, they always seem to have a story to go along with the product. Take the purchase of a car, for example. There is always a story about the car, the deal that was gotten, and sometimes even the remarkable timing of events that led to the purchase of the car. So what does this mean for you? As a person seeking employment you are at first seen as a commodity, and when an employer is hiring you, they are making a purchase of sorts. The more information the employer has about you, and the more (positive) stories that they can associate with you after your interview, the more likely you are to receive a job offer. A story about you can create a positive, memorable connection between you and your prospective employer. The more engaging the story is, the more likely people are to pass it around. In marketing, there is also something known as an elevator pitch, which is relevant to your job search. An elevator pitch is a story that you can tell (and that can be told again) quickly, which is memorable and to the point. For example, most people know that Google was started by two students at Stanford. People know that Henry Ford, the man behind the Ford Motor Company, developed the assembly line. You have a story too. That story can be useful to your employer if you develop it in your interview and application materials effectively. I will explain this further: As a recruiter, one of the primary jobs I do for candidates is to write a story describing their work and personal history. I then forward that to the prospective employer(s) along with the person’s application. I love writing these stories. I know that this document must thoroughly engross and draw in any employer who reads it. Throughout the years, I have realized that the better this story that I write is, the more likely the candidate is to get hired. In fact, developing a story for my candidates is one of the most important things that I can do for them. With very rare exceptions, every one of my successful candidate placements was due to the development of an outstanding story. There are some common characteristics of stories that get people hired, which I want to share with you so you can understand the entire process. The best stories typically revolve around the employee being very motivated to do a good job and continually wanting to improve in his or her employment. The person is generally portrayed as someone who works hard, has a positive attitude, is loyal, and, due to forces entirely outside his or her control, can no longer grow in his or her position or company. When the story is developed correctly, each job move is shown as part of this quest for continual self-improvement. A well-written story will also detail the candidate’s daily life. It will mention his or her family and friends, so that the prospective employer can come to identify with the candidate as a person. A good story requires a main character that has a positive attitude, who is trying to do well, but due to forces beyond his or her control, cannot. Think of the typical cops-and-robbers type movie or show. In these shows, the police officer is most often misunderstood while pursuing the bad guy. His boss thinks he is out of control and he receives frequent lectures about this. The cop is often so misunderstood that he is taken off the case. This story is incredibly popular and is so beloved that you can see it on probably any television set at any given time on any given day. When you think about why this story is so popular, it is pretty simple. It is about people trying to do good, putting in their best effort, and then being thwarted by various forces. In the process the people are often gravely misunderstood and may lose the respect of their peers. When we watch these types of shows, we almost want to scream at the television screen. We want to help the detective because we know he is in the right. When you are looking for a job, you need to think of the cops-and-robbers story and have a similar story that shows you are out there trying to do good. You want to present a story that is memorable and that sets the employer up to care about you to the degree that they feel like they are the good guy, intervening on your behalf to help you, and doing the right thing by offering you a job. The employer will also be more interested in you if you provide some personal information. Just like the police story shows you the personal life of the police officer, you too should give the employer a glimpse of your personal life. As a recruiter, I always ensure that I put information about my candidate’s personal life in the story so the employer can connect with the candidate. You want the employer to closely identify with you–the more the employer knows about you, the more you stand out, and the harder it is to reject you. I am not telling you to pour your heart out. Nor am I telling you to share everything about your personal life with the employer. But, if employers have a short story they can pass around about you, and if they can understand you personally, they will be more likely to hire you. In addition, if your candidacy is portrayed to the employer as something that furthers the cause of good, the employer will be much more likely to help you by offering you a job. People want to feel like they are doing something good when they are hiring someone. If you present your candidacy as a cause for good, the employer will remember that connection and will likely want to hire you. THE LESSON Marketing is crucial to your job search, because employers are essentially purchasing a product when hiring you. The more positive information your employer has about you, the more likely he or she is to hire you; personal stories create a connection between yourself and the employer. Stories that revolve around your motivation, dedication to your job, and drive for improvement will portray you as a hard worker with a positive attitude, who can longer grow in your current position for reasons outside of your control.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/use-stories-to-get-a-job-and-connect-with-an-employer/feed/ 0 Pay Attention to the Details http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/pay-attention-to-the-details/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/pay-attention-to-the-details/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 05:13:08 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=5566 5566 One of the most important things you can do in your career, business, and life is pay attention to details. With very few exceptions, the most successful people I have met always have an extraordinary ability to pay attention to even the smallest details. In fact, the more you examine successful people, the more it becomes clear that they are often obsessed and incredibly knowledgeable about details. In my house, shows like The Hills and so forth are on all the time. (A quick aside: I was at a party a few years ago where I had to sign a bunch of releases because the back of my head was apparently on camera when they were taping the show.) A lot of the good-looking young people on these shows are very, very successful. Watching them, though, it is hard to understand why they are so successful, because none of them seem all that intelligent. In fact, the shows are often comical because the kids seem so concerned about surface-level sorts of things. If you tried to speak with any of these kids about anything mildly intellectual, it seems as if their eyes would glaze over and they probably would not be too interested in whatever you were talking about. When I first started meeting successful Hollywood types years ago, I was baffled. Most of them did not seem all that intelligent, and they seemed mostly preoccupied with superficial things that seemed relatively unimportant to me. Frankly, I did not understand how these people could be doing so well. The more I observed them and saw what they were doing, though, the more I realized how incredibly in tune they were with details. In terms of their diet, many of them (even the men) had a profound understanding of the calorie count of certain foods, the danger of mixing certain foods, the importance of avoiding sugars and fats, and all sorts of things. Moreover, they had intricate knowledge of hairstyles, different fashions, and more. Finally, they were aware of an incredible number of social intricacies, always in-the-know regarding various events, who was in and who was out, and more. Being successful in Hollywood is a skill. I would argue that you need to be raised and bred for it to some extent. I do not care if they have great scholastic skills or not; the people who are able to experience success in the entertainment business are in tune with and are always looking out for an incredible number of details. Skills required in Hollywood such as social survival and advancement, maintaining looks, being in the good graces of the right people–all involve being aware of numerous incredibly small details that other people would probably overlook. Then there is the separate matter of maintaining a thick skin and a high self-esteem in the face of constant rejection. The Hollywood moguls are fascinating. One of the more interesting stories is that of David Geffen. Geffen never completed college and started out working in the mail room at a talent agency. He eventually became a billionaire by representing people in the music business, and he started a film company as well. A secret to his success, I used to hear, was that Geffen never drank, smoked, or used drugs, and he spent his career negotiating and doing business with musicians and others who were always under the negative influence of one substance or another. Due to this fact, Geffen used to tell people that he was able to negotiate all sorts of details in his favor. Being aware of details is not just important for Hollywood types; it is important in every profession. Whether you are a lawyer, a teacher, a waitress, or a professional athlete, your ability to pay attention to details will determine your success or failure. The people who get ahead in every profession are the people who take the extra step to do what others neglect to do. Most people do not concentrate on small details and do everything they can to get ahead except concentrate on the small details. Instead, they gloss right over the small details, not wanting to put forth the extra effort. This often results in a less than satisfactory outcome. In law, the people who are aware of the most details are the best attorneys. Every really good attorney I have ever known has been the one who examines and understands details that others do not take the time to understand. Glossing over details is a form of intellectual laziness, and the attorneys who do this are the ones who typically lose the most cases, have to charge the least money, and are the least respected in their jobs. When I was practicing law, at one point I worked for an attorney who never lost a case. He worked on several incredibly important cases that you are probably familiar with, and in virtually every case, he won before the case went to trial. These incredible results were due to the attorney’s ability to go deep into cases and understand the smallest of details. Without this skill, he probably would have been just another average attorney. He could come across a misstatement that someone made. Or it could be that someone never received proper notice for a given matter. Whatever the small details he uncovered, they were usually a game changer, and it led to his winning the case. The attorney was disciplined and focused in his work. He was not spending his evenings going out to eat with clients and so forth. He was waking up early and running several miles each morning, then coming into the office and working himself into a frenzy of enthusiasm for all the various details of the cases he was working on. Teachers who pay attention to details will know which students are performing the best and which students are not performing so well. They will understand which students have learned the lesson and which ones have not. Devoted teachers will make sure that their students understand the subtleties of various lessons that other teachers might not even bother to teach. The detail-oriented teachers will have numerous handouts for students and will go the extra mile. They might also spend time after class with students who do not understand certain materials. Ultimately these teachers will make more of an impact on the lives of their students. Waitresses who are detail-oriented will remember what their customers ordered the last time they visited the restaurant. They will remember customers’ preferences and will make sure that their orders are prepared a certain way. Good waiters will watch the customers’ coffee and beverage cups to make sure they are kept full at all times. They might write small notes on the check thanking people for their business. They will often greet repeat customers by their first names. They will attend to one detail after another, and as a result, they will make better tips than their less detail-minded peers. Professional athletes who work out every day, watch their diet, and work on improving their weaknesses and strengths each day, are likely to do better than athletes who do not. When you watch or read about the successes of the top professional athletes, you will generally see that they push themselves and work on details of their game in ways that the more “average” athletes do not. If you are going to get ahead and advance in anything it is incredibly important that you do your absolute best to concentrate on the details that others are glossing over or outright ignoring. The person who stretches himself or herself and pays attention to details is always the one who ends up doing the best in any undertaking or profession. Details are also important in your search for employment. When looking for a job, the person who seeks jobs in places that are often overlooked will typically achieve better results. Those who take the time to personally consider and address their applications to the right people usually do the best. Those who follow up afterward will do even better. Those who research a prospective employer before attending an interview are also more likely to receive an offer. Where people win in business, in their careers, and elsewhere is often in the small print. I hate contracts and I hate the small print, but this is where many people and companies make their profits, and it is where you are probably losing, if you are not paying enough attention. The small print hits you when you don’t expect it. Your bank charges you all sorts of small fees; a hotel charges you an extra $7.00 for room service; your credit card company charges you annual fees and so forth. These tiny expenses add up and they can ultimately eat away at you. When you deal with very good negotiators, they will typically negotiate around the periphery and make out better in the end, due to details that you have overlooked. Details always add up. In the aggregate, focusing on the small details can often be more important than focusing on the larger picture of your career and life. You achieve the greatest progress by tending to one detail at a time. THE LESSON The most successful people are often obsessed with and are incredibly knowledgeable about the minutiae of their work. You must concentrate and develop an understanding of the details that others “gloss over” for true happiness and success in your job. When looking for a job, you will find greater success by looking for openings in places that others overlook. Focusing on the small details will, in aggregate, bring you much greater success than focusing on the bigger picture, so start by tending to one detail at a time.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/pay-attention-to-the-details/feed/ 0 Garlic Olive Oil, Craigslist Massages–and Doing Your Homework http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/garlic-olive-oil-craigslist-massages-and-doing-your-homework/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/garlic-olive-oil-craigslist-massages-and-doing-your-homework/#comments Sat, 26 Mar 2011 05:23:59 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=6919 6919 I’ve decided that I am never again going to have a masseuse come over from Craigslist. It’s just not worth it. A few weeks ago I was at a conference in Chicago. I was staying at a so-so hotel without a spa near the airport. I called the front desk to see if they had anyone they could recommend for a massage and the receptionist recommended that I find someone on Craigslist. Since I am in the career business, the only part of Craigslist I have ever spent any time on has been the job listings; however, Craigslist has a lot more than jobs listed. As I quickly realized, you can find just about anything there. I found a masseuse that seemed really good: She had a bunch of statements on her description about how she worked near the airport, and that there was no sex whatsoever associated with her services. After looking at the first few massage listings of other people I realized why she felt the need to have such an explicit sort of “NO SEX!” advertisement: Many of the pictures in the other ads were borderline pornographic, and it was clear that much more than massage would be occurring if you called certain people. In fact, it seemed like many of the people were not actually offering a massage at all. When the woman arrived for the massage, I saw that she was a very serious seeming, petite German woman who was ready for business. She brought sheets that appeared to have creases ironed in them. Everything seemed very much in order. Within a few minutes she set up a massage table and started giving me a massage. It was one of the greatest massages I had ever had in my life. In about 10 minutes I had completely dozed off. When she woke me up I could not believe I had slept through the whole massage. “How long was I sleeping?” I asked her. “Two hours,” she said. I was astonished that I had slept for so long. Shortly thereafter, the masseuse had packed up and was ready to go. She told me the cost of a two-hour massage. I paid her and tipped her for having done such an excellent job, and she was gone. To get all the oil off my body I took a shower. When I came out of the shower I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and realized that only around 50 minutes had gone by since the woman had shown up. It was only 8:50 and she had arrived at 8:00. So, I had paid for a two hour massage that had only been around 40 minutes. I could not believe I had been scammed by a masseuse. By the time I realized this, the woman was long gone. That was my first experience with getting a massage on Craigslist. I had my second experience a couple of nights ago. I have always enjoyed getting a massage now and then. For about five years I lived directly across the street from a Ritz-Carlton resort. Every few weeks I would walk over there and get a massage. Around three years ago, I moved away from that neighborhood, and I now live far from any hotels or spas. Unfortunately, the only place I have found nearby is run by a man in an office complex, who does something called “Rolfing.” Rolfing is not like typical massage and is instead a very painful sort of muscular manipulation meant to make you stand up straighter and improve your posture. It hurts while the entire process is occurring, but after the two-hour session, you feel pretty good. The practice is more of a medical/chiropractic sort of thing than a massage, but the end results are excellent. I have noticed myself thinking clearly and feeling much more relaxed after these sessions. It is much more effective than any other sort of massage I have ever had. Rolfing is meant to be a series of sequential sessions. For example, the first session concentrates on opening your chest, the next session focuses on your legs, and so forth. Following several sessions, you are supposed to feel a major change in your relationship with your body. Rolfers have to go to school to learn how to do it properly, and I believe one of the only schools for the discipline is in Colorado. Because of the duration of the schooling and other factors, there are simply not many people out there who do Rolfing. The man who does Rolfing near my house eventually made it big with investments. One of the last times I visited him, he was talking about a mine he had invested in. Also, from what I understand, he is pals with all sorts of celebrities, whom he has “Rolfed” in our community. He apparently pals around with these people, flying around to all sorts of places in his spare time. He does not seem that committed to his work anymore. A couple of years ago, he gave me a few Rolfing sessions then got injured and stopped working for a year. I remembered a few months ago that I had never paid him for his last session, which was a year ago (he only takes cash) and one day when I was near his office, I saw someone inside working. I stopped by and paid for the last session I had had, because I happened to have the money on me. The woman working in the reception told me that the owner had not worked in over a year, but that he “might” be willing to take on a few new select patients. He called me a week or so later and I started going to see him again. A month or so ago, he completely fell off the face of the earth–again. I have no idea what happened. Because I am eager to complete all of the Rolfing sessions, I asked my assistant to start researching to see if it would be possible for any qualified person to come by my house to do some Rolfing. Realizing from my experience in Chicago that there are “massage-type” people on Craigslist, we decided to look there. The only person we found was on Craigslist, and she had a listing of at least 25 different types of massage that she offered, in addition to Rolfing. “Are you sure she does Rolfing?” I asked my assistant as I looked at the list of all the types of massages the person supposedly knew. “Yes, it says right here on her Craigslist advertisement that she is certified in Rolfing,” she told me. Sure enough, it did. A few nights ago, the woman showed up at my house to perform a Rolfing session. She was in her early to mid-50s, I would guess, and quite normal looking. There was not anything unusual about her, as far as I could tell. She took a massage table and set up in a spare room in our house. I got undressed, put a towel around my waist, and walked into the room a few minutes later. My wife was putting my daughter to bed in the next room. “Okay, make sure all of your clothes are off and lie on your back face up. I am not going to put a towel over you, if that is all right, because I want to have access to your entire body.” The idea of lying on the table without wearing any clothes whatsoever, face up, was a bit more than I could handle. I had never seen this woman before in my life. When I had had Rolfing done in the past, I had always been in my underwear, so I did not understand why I was expected to be nude for this. “I am not sure I am comfortable with this,” I told her. She then said something that convinced me permanently to never ever call a masseuse from Craigslist again: “Don’t worry,” she said. “I am not going to do any ‘tantric release’ this session. While I do not need to, I generally like to sit down and discuss tantric release with my clients’ wives before doing this. People have strange feelings about sexual matters and I find this is best.” I was in a bit of a state of shock, and I decided to push a little further. “What is ‘tantric release’?” I asked her. “Genital manipulation,” she said. “Oh, of course. How silly of me,” I said. As she had correctly guessed, this was not something I wanted to experience. I told the woman I was going to go change and would be back in a minute or so. I put on a pair of running shorts and tied them very, very tightly around my waist. Once the “massage” started, I realized that the woman knew very little, if anything, about Rolfing. In fact, I could tell she knew very little about massage. She told me that she preferred to use water instead of massage oil, and started massaging me with water. I have a lot of hair on my body, and she kept pulling all the hair on my back. The entire process was excruciating. It was even worse because she was talking the entire time about her past lives and a bunch of other nonsense. She said something about being on a raw meat diet that was so effective it had made a bunch of warts fall off of her back. The whole experience was completely bizarre. Because the massage was so painful, at some point I had to ask her to stop and get some oil or something. “She was probably using water because she is too cheap to buy massage oil,” my wife said later. The woman did not seem happy about this, but she told me she would use olive oil instead of water. She started massaging me with olive oil and my eyes started to water. It smelled like garlic. I told her it smelled awful. “It’s garlic olive oil. It’s all I have,” she told me. I could not believe I was being massaged with garlic olive oil. I smelled like a bowl of spaghetti. Several days later the room still smells like a bowl of spaghetti. My shower still smells like a bowl of spaghetti, and so do I. In fact, I cannot get the smell of garlic off my body. She even used the oil in my hair to give me a scalp massage. Wherever I am I can smell that garlic. For example, I was sitting there watching television last night, and suddenly got a whiff of the smell. I hate the smell of garlic; just thinking about it gives me a headache. It has been days since the garlic massage, and even as I write this, my eyes are watering. The only way to keep my eyes from watering is to be on the move. “She probably purchased the garlic olive oil because it was on sale,” my wife told me later. My experience with looking for a massage on Craigslist is no different from someone looking for a job on any sort of Internet job board, who is looking for the best thing he or she can possibly find. When I saw the ad for a masseuse on Craigslist in Chicago, I did not have many options: I picked the person who was not showing me pictures of her private parts in her advertisement, and who declared that nothing unexpected–or illegal–would happen during the massage. However, the fact that the massage therapist in Chicago was advertising in the same area as hookers should have been a warning sign to me. The next time I used Craigslist, I simply looked under the keyword “Rolfing,” which was not the most intelligent way to conduct my search. The fact that 20 different types of massage were listed in the chosen masseuse’s ad should have been a warning sign. You need to do your homework and always know what you are getting into. In the case of the Rolfing practitioner, I could have called the people who give certifications for Rolfing, and I probably could have found someone good. In the case of the hotel in Chicago, I could have simply found another hotel down the street, one with a decent spa. You need to use logic and make sure that you always understand that what you are doing is the correct thing to do. Many people look for jobs the way I looked for a massage. They do not think through what they are getting into, and they wind up in jobs that do not match their interests or deliver on their expectations. You need to research and understand the people you are interviewing with and whom you are going to be working with. Even if you are desperate for work, you need to make sure you fully understand what you are getting into before you take the job. THE LESSON Do your homework, and always know beforehand what you are getting into. Think logically, and always make sure that you are correct in what you are doing. When people approach their job search without a clear understanding of what they are getting into, they often find themselves in jobs that neither match their interests nor live up to their expectations. Even if you are desperate for work, you must do your research and fully understand the situation before taking a given job.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/garlic-olive-oil-craigslist-massages-and-doing-your-homework/feed/ 6 Good Things Only Happen When You Are Moving http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/good-things-only-happen-when-you-are-moving/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/good-things-only-happen-when-you-are-moving/#comments Mon, 02 May 2011 05:41:47 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=1385 1385 Probably the low point of my life was the summer I decided I needed to get ready for eleventh grade. Since I was young, I had been told that if I wanted to get into a good college, I would have to earn excellent grades in eleventh grade. My father had gone to Harvard and had told me since the time I was old enough to understand about how he earned all As in his junior year of high school, and how this had helped him get into this great college. I intended to do the same. Some of the stress of this was elevated due to the fact that my father also did some admissions work for Harvard, so I had some pretty good insights as to how my current application would be viewed. In a word, I needed to do really well in eleventh grade. Eleventh grade is typically the most important year because it is the last year of grades that colleges see before you are enrolled. Since my grades had not been all that fantastic in the years leading up to eleventh grade, I told myself that I would brush up on various subjects that summer before school started. I went around speaking with the teachers I would be having the next year and declared my intention to do work over the summer to get ready for their classes the following year. I remember the look of astonishment on their faces as I related my desire to do my best to get ready for their classes the following year. I do not think they thought I was serious. Nevertheless, they were happy to give me work to do and they must have been humored by it. I think one teacher might have told me to read Paradise Lost and a few other books including the Old Testament as a joke (but I took him seriously). My math teacher gave me a copy of the math book his class would be using the following year. Because I planned on spending the summer getting ready for eleventh grade, I did not even look for a job. My parents are divorced and I decided to move in with my mother on the other side of town because I thought this was the only place I could conceivably get any work done. At my father’s house, my room was right next to my stepsister’s room. My sister had dropped out of school at age 14. She was a few years older than me and had recently gotten her dream job working in a record store. She had also used her money from this job to invest in stereo equipment that was so powerful it shook the walls of my room. Her mother was fiercely protective of her, and try as I might, I could not get her to turn down the music. She had recently started listening to nothing but hip-hop. I was beginning to think she fancied herself a hip-hop artist. She started dressing and talking differently. The worst thing about her new job was that they gave her free hip-hop records. Many of these records would start out with machine gun fire sounds that would shake the walls of my room, and it was very hard for me to read when I was hearing expletives pour out in surround sound every few seconds. So I decided to move in with my mother to escape the hip-hop music. I was very excited about spending the summer getting ready for school so I could go to a top college. I have no idea what was wrong with me to this day. It was like I was going on a nerd mission. My friends at that point were all pretty wild and I am not sure what they thought of me going across town to study at my mother’s house. I told myself I had made a good decision, though, especially after visiting my friend Steve a few weeks into the summer. Steve lived on my father’s side of town in Birmingham, Michigan, about an hour away from my mother’s in Grosse Pointe. I drove my Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel over to Steve’s house and arrived there at about 6:00 in the afternoon. I was with my friend Joe, whom I did not see very much anymore. Joe had become very good at football and was being recruited by colleges at that point. We had grown apart. Steve loved my Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel and always used to say “Diesel!!” whenever he saw me. When we got to Steve’s house, he was smashed. Steve’s parents were in the middle of a divorce and he was not handling it well. Steve proceeded to take us to a party. The party was in a neighborhood called Wabeek that, at the time, was inhabited almost exclusively by people who had recently immigrated from the Middle East and owned convenience stores and gas stations throughout Detroit. The homes were really nice and gold plated lions sat on many of their front lawns. I think there was also a small replica of the White House somewhere in this neighborhood. We were not at the party for longer than 15 minutes when Steve got kicked out. He had been talking to a girl and something bad had happened. I have no idea what. We were standing at the curb and Steve was still shouting stuff at the girl. It was a bad situation. There were spectators (at least 15 of them) standing in front of this giant, gaudy house, listening to the insults being hurled back and forth. I realized at this point that the girl’s entire family was also standing on the front lawn witnessing this–apparently, this was her house. Even her grandparents were there. “The worst thing is that you’re fat and you smoke!” Steve screamed at her. This was too much. The men in the group, including the grandfather, started running towards the car. I fired up the Diesel and barely got away. Volkswagen Rabbit Diesels from the early 1980s were not fast. They were embarrassingly slow and I was lucky to have made it out of there. I looked over at Joe (the football player) and even he looked very frightened. “Those guys are going to kill us,” he said. “They are not messing around.” I was frightened, too. I continued to drive. A few moments later, I saw a Lincoln Continental swing around a curve and realized it was headed right towards us. Then I saw another car swing around the curve. The cars caught up to us in no time. They proceeded to cut me off and I drove my car into a ditch. The men then raced up to the car, pulled Steve out, and started punching and kicking him. Steve was laughing the whole time. The men then said something about treating women with respect. My friend Joe got involved and explained that Steve was a drunk and his parents were going through a divorce. Joe was a huge guy and I can imagine he felt the three to four hours a day he lifted weights was going to help him break up this bizarre altercation. Joe was so big and so tough that he had to ride in the Volkswagen with his head resting on his shoulder because he was too big to fit in the car otherwise. When Joe got out of the car, the men with the gold chains and Iranian accents quickly turned into puppy dogs and made us promise to take Steve to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Then they shook hands with us and left. I think they must have thought Joe was a professional wrestler. Steve was bruised and bleeding and still laughing. For the next hour, we drove from church to church looking for an AA meeting to drop Steve off at. He was still laughing and there was blood all over the back seat of my car. Eventually we dropped Steve off at another party and I drove back to my side of town with Joe. “Wow, it’s pretty hardcore over on this side of town,” Joe said. “Boy, it’s a good thing you’re not spending the summer here.” “Yeah, it sure is,” I said. When the summer began, I am sure you can guess what happened. I opened a math book and got confused within a few minutes and then I stared at the wall in front of me for a few hours while alternating between periods of doodling and feeble attempts to study. Then, I tried reading Paradise Lost. I was about two hours into it before I realized I had not progressed much, since I did not understand the 18th century English that the book was written in. It was also incredibly boring to me because it was about the Old Testament. My friends called me during those first few weeks of the summer, wanting to go out, and when I related to them that I was studying they seemed to think I had lost it. I think I had. Notwithstanding, I did the best I could to push forward, but I simply could not bear to memorize words in a foreign language, read 200+ years-old books, and puzzle through a bunch of math problems. I began to get depressed. My mom was dating a Scottish tugboat captain and by 6:00 pm every night they would start having a party. He would sip scotch and rock back and forth on a chair with a big smile on his face while playing tapes of bagpipe players. I’d try to talk to him sometimes and we would get into ridiculous arguments about conspiracy theories he would propose about the government. I think he believed that George Bush was an alien, for example. On the nights he and my mother stayed in, he would invariably tell me around 9:00 pm each evening: “I am so drunk I cannot talk anymore. We will need to continue the discussion tomorrow …” On many nights the Scottish tugboat captain and my mom would go out and have a great time at restaurants and meet friends. I would be left sitting there, looking at page seven of a math book I had been involved with for weeks. I must have watched a lot of television. To this day, I cannot recall much of what happened that summer. The strangest thing I remember from that summer was when a few of my friends showed up at my house one evening–on LSD. I had never really met anyone on LSD, but really did not sense anything all that unusual. Everything seemed pretty normal to me–until early the next morning. At that point, I realized one of the guys had been sitting on the curb all night staring at a blade of grass. “I had the most incredible experience. I watched that blade of grass change all night. It got dew on it and then the dew disappeared,” he told me. Drugs can really mess people up. I helped the guy get up and he walked home talking to himself about the blade of grass as if he had just met Jesus Christ. Throughout the summer, various neighborhood girls would stop by in groups of two or three to see what I was up to. At first they were quite sober when they arrived, and the visit would generally progress in two steps. First, there would be an initial visit while they were sober; then this visit would be followed by another visit, wherein they would bring over groups of messed up friends, all hyped up, as if they were witnessing a laser light show played on a planetarium ceiling with Pink Floyd blasting in the background. “What are you doing?” they would ask. “I’m studying and trying to get ready for eleventh grade,” I would tell them. They would look at me like I was absolutely out of my mind. “That’s great!” they would say. Invariably, a few weeks later the same girls would come back, but with more girls. There would always be a couple more girls with them, whom I did not recognize. It was as if they were saying, “Hey, you need to check this guy out. He’s totally intense and studying for classes he has not even taken yet! Isn’t this the most insane freak show you’ve ever seen!” The spectators would tag along and their eyes would dart several times to the eyes of the girls I knew, as I related how I was studying that summer. I knew they thought they were witnessing something akin to another life form. Visits would typically begin with idle chitchat. The girls’ eyes would all be glassy-eyed from recent marijuana use and they would smell like smoke. “So, tell us about how you are spending the summer studying …” they would always say after a few minutes of talking about nothing. On one occasion, one girl was so close to laughing she would run into the bathroom so she could laugh. Invariably, a short while after I would relate to them how I was spending the summer studying, they would leave. After several weeks of this, I became quite mopish. I was hardly making any progress in my studies, and despite making my best efforts, I could not bring myself to get through any of the textbooks and other reading. It lacked excitement, to say the least. I also told myself that I needed to disassociate myself from my wild friends if I were ever going to get into an excellent college. Other than that, I am not really sure what was going through my mind. Literally nothing happened that summer. To this day, I am still getting over the damage that summer did to me. The thing about this horrible summer is that it is no different than the lives many of us lead; and it is no different than the lives many people lead after they lose a job. The most serious mistake I made that summer was that I stopped moving. I literally did nothing that summer and ended up accomplishing absolutely nothing. It was the worst 12 weeks of my life. When you stop moving and being productive, you can very easily get depressed. That’s when bad things happen. When things stop moving, they die. Every week, I review all sorts of unemployment data to learn about what is going on in the job market. One of the points that is often noted in these statistics is that there are numerous people who simply stop looking for jobs each week. These are people who may have been looking for a job, but then they give up. This is absolutely the worst thing that can happen. I have seen this happen with so many people I know. People simply stop trying to look for a job. Nothing good can come from this. These are people who have stopped moving. You never want to stop moving. The more you move, the more opportunities you will see. That summer was completely worthless to me socially, financially, and academically. I had stopped moving. While it is admirable to try and study for an entire summer, I suppose, I was not able to do this. Instead, I withdrew and became a circus attraction by virtue of my inactivity. The quality of your life is determined by what you focus on and you need to choose things that are interesting to you. You need to direct your focus on tasks that are going to keep you productive. One of the images I never have been able to get out of my mind is when the police are called, or an ambulance is called, to rescue someone that is overweight and trapped inside a house. I see stories like this in USA Today all the time:
Rescue Workers Who Can’t Get Morbidly Obese Woman Out of House Call for Front-End Loader Dozens of paramedics and firefighters failed in their efforts to get a morbidly obese New Jersey woman out of her house and to the hospital. Now they’re waiting for the county to send over some heavy construction equipment. As of 11 p.m. last night, the woman still had not been extricated from the house and rescuers on the scene were calling to county officials to inquire about borrowing a front-end loader. After several hours of work, the rescue workers on the scene concluded that they wouldn’t be able to get the woman out of the house without removing a second-story window. The scene began just before sundown in the 100 block of Huff Avenue, when reports said the woman, believed to weigh between 700 and 800 pounds, fell and injured herself in an upstairs bathroom,” The Trentonian reports.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/04/rescue_workers_.html While such stories as this are extreme, they are examples of people who have stopped moving, and they demonstrate what can happen when you stop moving. When you stop moving, the job market and the world begin to look at you very suspiciously. All further progress is extremely difficult for people who stop moving. In the practice of law (and in many other professions), the absolute worst thing you can do is have a significant unemployment gap on your résumé. This is often interpreted by prospective employers as a lack of commitment to your job and your profession. Also, on another level, I think that other attorneys look at it as if you are out of touch with what is going on. You are no longer current, and are therefore less relevant. If you are perceived as being out of touch, you are much less employable. You need to be perceived as continually in touch. Several years ago, a very talented attorney I know was fired because the company he was working for was involved in corrupt activities and he told them that he was under a fiduciary duty to report this. Despite the fact that he had been earning over $200,000 a year at the time, he was fired. He came to me and told me that for his own psychological health he just needed something to do. He told me he would even work for $20 an hour. I gave him some tasks to do and he was very grateful. He was just trying to look out for his health. It worked for him. Research by the American Psychologist confirms that work “plays a central role in the development, expression, and maintenance of psychological health. [It can] promote connection to the broader social and economic world, enhance well-being, and provide a means for individual satisfaction and accomplishment.” There are far more benefits than just this, for sure. You need to keep moving and should never slow down. Even in a bad market it is important that you stay busy and work. Do not ever idle. When you slow down, bad things can happen. THE LESSON You must maintain a state of constant motion; when you stop moving and being productive, bad things happen to you. Things die when they stop moving, which is why you should never give up under any circumstances. When people stop moving, they make all further progress difficult. Avoid gaps in your employment, as you will be seen as out of touch and less employable; instead, you need to stay continually moving and never slow down.

]]> http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/good-things-only-happen-when-you-are-moving/feed/ 3 Socrates and Your Job Search http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/socrates-and-your-job-search/ http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/socrates-and-your-job-search/#comments Sat, 09 Jul 2011 05:01:53 +0000 Harrison Barnes http://www.aharrisonbarnes.com/?p=2208 2208 Several years ago, we were launching a newsletter for law schools. One of our employees who was working on the project decided that the title of the newsletter should be “The Signal” and he was very enthusiastic about this particular title. In fact, I had never seen him so enthusiastic about anything. The problem with this name was that the domain name for it had been taken long ago and I seem to remember that the person who owned the domain name had no interest in selling it. Without a domain name, it did not seem like it made sense to have an important newsletter going out to law schools with this particular name. The newsletter was supposed to be electronic, and due to it being electronic, people would start associating the name “The Signal” with the newsletter and looking for it under this URL when they did searches online. I explained this to my employee but he was having none of it. He did not care what the URL was. He was convinced the newsletter needed to be called “The Signal,” and when I would not agree to this he became extremely irate. He stomped out of work. He stopped working on the project and refused to work on the newsletter the next day. What had happened to this particular employee is that he had decided that things just needed to be a certain way and he did not want to hear anything that was different from this certain way at all. He had made up his mind that only one name was appropriate and had thrown all of his thinking, energy, and spirit behind something that was really unnecessary. However, this is something that many of us do in one form or another, and we do it with numerous, numerous things. One of the biggest challenges for me in working with people looking for jobs, is that most people seem to believe that their search needs to work in a certain way. They believe that there is one way of looking for a job and that way is the only way. People are extremely attached to doing things a certain way. For someone who is in their mid 50s, they may believe they should never go online and that the best sources of jobs are always in the newspaper. Other people may believe that networking is the only approach to getting a job. Still, other people may believe they will only be able to ever get a job with a certain type of employer. People are very stubborn and this obstinance is something that really holds them back. The guy who worked for me was so frustrated by the title of the newsletter, he ended up not coming into work regularly and turned from a very dependable employee to one who was completely unreliable. This was a huge mistake and he ended up losing his job. He was pigheaded about something that did not really matter. Many of us are pigheaded about stuff that does not really matter and it ends up hurting our careers. We believe that something can only be done a certain way, and then we stick to this without questioning everything around us. For my entire career, I have been encouraging people to question their assumptions about how to find a job. I believe that questioning assumptions, consistently doing new things and finding new ways to search are among the most important things we can do in a job search. In fact, I believe they are the most important things. The more you question what you are doing and embrace new methods of looking for jobs, the better off you will be. Socrates is considered by most academics as the Founder of Western philosophy. He lived around 2,500 years ago and since he never wrote a book, everything we know about him comes largely from what others wrote about him. Socrates was considered a very interesting figure around Athens. After having been a distinguished solider he returned to Athens and wandered around the city engaging various people around the city in conversations. At the time there were teachers who traveled around the country called Sophists, who taught various subjects to people who paid them. Unlike the Sophists, Socrates never took payment for his teaching, and most significantly, he claimed that he had nothing to teach. He told people he did not have any actual knowledge and was no smarter than others. Socrates claimed that if he was wiser than others, it was only due to the fact that he was aware that he was ignorant. Most of what is known about Socrates comes from the writings of his student Plato, and from his dialogues in particular (however, the works of Aristotle and others provide some insights as well). In these dialogues, Socrates will typically confront someone who claims to know something and be an expert on one philosophical topic or another, such as a moral or epistemological issues–for example, the nature of justice or virtue. Through questioning of this person, Socrates will then proceed to show that this person does not know what he claims at all. According to one definition:
The Socratic method is a negative method of hypotheses of elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. The method of Socrates is a search for the underlying hypotheses, assumptions, or axioms, which may subconsciously shape one’s opinion, and to make them the subject of scrutiny, to determine their consistency with other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions formulated as tests of logic and fact, intended to help a person or group discover their beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi (singular logos), seeking to characterize the general characteristics shared by various particular instances. To the extent to which this method is designed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors’ beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, it was called the method of maieutics. Aristotle attributed to Socrates the discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the essence of the scientific method. Perhaps oddly, however, Aristotle also claimed that this method is not suitable for ethics. According to W.K.C. Guthrie’s The Greek Philosophers, while sometimes erroneously believed to be a method by which one seeks the answer to a problem, or knowledge, the Socratic method was actually intended to demonstrate one’s ignorance. Socrates, unlike the Sophists, did believe that knowledge was possible, but believed that the first step to knowledge was recognition of one’s ignorance. Guthrie writes, “[Socrates] was accustomed to say that he did not himself know anything, and that the only way in which he was wiser than other men was that he was conscious of his own ignorance, while they were not. The essence of the Socratic method is to convince the interlocutor that whereas he thought he knew something, in fact he does not.”

Socrates was eventually put on trial and sentenced to death in Athens for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens with his teachings. It was during this trial that Socrates made the famous statement that the “unexamined life is not worth living.” The idea that there is one way of doing things is something that needs to be questioned. One of my greatest frustrations with job seekers is trying to get them to realize how many different methods there are for them to get jobs, and the incredible number of paths they can follow in their job searches. You need to be aware that whatever assumptions you have about the way you should be looking for a job may be doing you a tremendous amount of harm. These assumptions need to be questioned, and you need to insure that in questioning these assumptions, you realize that they may be limiting you. Here are some of the assumptions that are not necessarily true that I have seen people make about their job search:

  • A recruiter will not help me get a job.
  • A recruiter will help me get a job.
  • I need to use a recruiter for my job search.
  • I would never post my resume on a resume site.
  • I need to post my resume on a resume site.
  • I would never pay someone to help me get a job.
  • I can only get a job if I pay someone to assist me.
  • I will never get a job in this economy.
  • I am too old to get a job.
  • I am too young to get a job.
  • I do not have enough experience.
  • I have too much experience.
  • I need connections to get this job.
  • I will never get another job because I was fired.
  • I did not go to a good enough school to work there.

The list of things about your candidacy and job search could go on and on. You need to be questioning everything about how you are looking for a job and what this means. Your job search is too important and your career is too important to allow yourself to be stuck in one way of thinking. You need to open your mind and ensure that you do everything within your power to think about your job search in a way that gives you more opportunities and not fewer. THE LESSON In your job search you must question assumptions, find new ways of doing things, and consistently find new ways to search. You will be better off the more you seek out and adopt new job search techniques; your career is too important for you to be stuck in traditional ways of thinking. You must open your mind, and ensure that you are doing everything within your power to view your job search in a way that grants you more opportunities, not fewer.

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