Being Nice Makes Good Business Sense

Several years ago I was getting ready to interview with a law firm in New York. It was my first interview ever as a law student and I was pretty nervous. I was trying to get on an elevator as the door was closing and I saw a woman rushing towards it. I reached quickly for the button to open the elevator and was able to get the door to re-open at the last second. The woman got on and told me which floor to push, and I did this for her as well. The woman was very heavy and was not particularly well-dressed. We were going to a very high floor and there were several stops along the way.

At one of the stops, I started looking over my hair because I could see my reflection in the glass in the elevator. I looked up and saw the woman looking directly at me, and she smirked as if to say I looked ridiculous primping in the elevator.

At that point in my life I lifted weights frequently and spent a lot of time at the gym. I taught myself it was important to stick up for myself at all costs. Normally, what I would have done was turn around and tell the woman to mind her own business. On that occasion, however, my nervousness must have gotten the best of me. I turned around and looked directly at the woman.

”Do I look ok? I am going to an interview and I am a little nervous. I want to do a good job.”

The woman looked absolutely stunned. The way she looked at me had invited me to strike out and attack. Instead, I had done the opposite.

”Yes, you do. Just pull your tie up a little. I am sure you’ll do fine.”

This woman ended up being in charge of the hiring committee at the law firm. She was reputed to be extremely difficult as an interviewer and did not like anyone. In my interview, she was very nice to me. I ended up getting the job at the firm and working in this same law firm over the summer. The woman was nice to me during the summer as well and stood up for me. In fact, she was one of the nicest people in the law firm I can remember.

There is really something to being nice. When you are nice to people, you invite them to be nice in return. However, most often we are less interested in being nice than we are in being thought of as important, powerful, or right.

Given the incredible number of experiences I have had over and over again in my life, I am confident there are various forms of energy we simply do not understand. I firmly believe when you send out negative energy, it comes right back to you. I also believe when you send out positive energy, it comes back to you as well.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Richest Man in Babylon. One of the rules in this book is that when you make money you are supposed to give away 10 percent of it to charity or some other good cause. The idea is when you give away 10 percent of your income, you will realize how much abundance there is and you will become less attached to money.

While the book makes this point, and I believe there is truth to it, there is another important point about giving away money as well. When you help and give to others you create positive energy which is directed back at you. There is nothing more important than having positive energy directed back at you. The more positive energy you have directed at you, the better your life and everything in it is going to be.

The word ”appreciation” is, to me, one of the more interesting words in the English language. What appreciation means essentially is positive energy directed towards something. For example, when a stock appreciates it means people are excited about it and its value rises. When you are appreciated it means people like you and the value you bring them. Anything that appreciates takes on more value than it originally had. Things typically take on more value when others are excited about them for one reason or another.

You want to be appreciated. You need to be appreciated. Being appreciated means others are seeing and recognizing your value. When people see your value, you get more opportunities and your career and your life can only improve.

Think about things you appreciate in your life and the people who appreciate you. You appreciate these people and things because of how they make you feel. When we are babies, the only things we think about are our needs and taking care of those needs, specifically our need for food and comfort. We do not yet have the capacity to appreciate the needs of others. As we grow older we learn how our actions affect others positively or negatively. We learn we can make others happy or sad. We begin to learn how our ability to make others happy has an effect on our own happiness.

The world exists as exchanges of energy. If negative energy goes out then negative energy comes back. If someone robs a liquor store, the police come after the person and incarcerate him or her. If someone makes a large financial donation to a good cause, the newspapers write about this person’s generosity for all to know. There is a constant interplay between positive and negative energy in the world, and you want to be on the receiving end of positive energy. This is really the only decent place to be. When positive energy comes to us, we feel better and the world is a better place to us. This simple rule is so easy to follow.

We exist in a consumer-driven society where so many of our desires are shaped by things outside of us. For example, many people evaluate their happiness based on their material possessions. People strive to earn the money to purchase the best house and car they can. They want nice furniture and watches. They want to travel to the best places. Many people evaluate their own self worth based on their ability to accumulate these possessions. This is the way of the Western world. What this sort of consumer culture does, however, is focus almost exclusively on the act of accumulating various things. It does not emphasize the act of putting out positive energy and instead bases everything on taking in energy. This constant taking in often violates laws of the universe which demand equal exchanges between opposite forms of energy. Instead of being focused on taking things in, we need to be focused on putting out positive energy.

This brings me back to the act of being nice. Several years ago, I was listening to Deepak Chopra speak and he was making a similar point. He said whenever he visits someone’s home, he always brings them a flower. In bringing people a flower, he is trying to set up a dynamic of being nice and sending out positive energy. Sending out positive energy is something that comes back to you every single time.

There is a best selling career book called Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office. The message of this book is if you worry about offending others, are forthright when explaining information, and make sure your decisions are popular, you will never get ahead. The idea behind the book is that in being nice to others you will not be successful. I believe the opposite is true. When you are nice to others you send out the sort of energy which gets you ahead.

Some years ago I was at a seminar and met a woman who had been a partner at a large and important law firm, but had quit after a year. She was now a real estate agent and I got the sense she was struggling a little. She told me about how she had been working with the law firm and did not become partner until she demanded it and turned mean. She told me people had walked all over her in her job until she became mean. When I asked her to give me some examples, she did not have any. She simply said they did not make her partner.

I think the woman ended up getting fired from her job within a year of making partner. She had worked for the firm for almost 10 years, and within a year of deciding the best thing for her to do was to become ”a bitch,” she had lost her job. Being mean simply does not work.

I have seen this happen in my own life and with people who have worked for me as well. Recently, I had someone working for me who was extremely competent in all respects. The person was working very close with me and I was extremely impressed. For some reason, however, this person could not get along with others outside my office. One day, she called and screamed at a co-worker for no apparent reason. She also refused to follow instructions. Somehow, she’d come to believe it was good to be mean to others, to attack others savagely, and to not follow orders. The person was quickly let go despite her competence in other areas.

Who knows how this person rationalized losing her job to herself? If she had just been nice to others she would still be happily employed. Instead, this person ended up losing her job and poisoning the people around her who were working for her in the process. When someone sends out negative energy, it does a lot of damage.

You need to be nice to others. This is the most important thing you can do in your job. Let the negative energy of others flow right through you and be nice in response. The way to get ahead is to be liked, not feared and hated.

We want to work with people who are nice. Companies need people who are nice. It is important to be nice. I want to be very clear that by being nice I am not talking about being a doormat. When you are nice and place the needs of others on the same level as your own, you are simply being smart. Being nice is the smartest thing you can possibly do in your career.

The Best Career Advice You Will Ever Receive

When I was around 14 years old, I moved out of my mother’s house and in with my father, his new wife, and her daughter in a different part of town. I would stay there for a few months, attend a different school, then move to Bangkok, Thailand, and attend school there.

At this new school, immediately I learned that one of the most popular girls in the school liked me a lot. She started calling me and having her friends invite me to parties. She would come over with various gorgeous friends to watch television at my house and invite me to go shopping with her on the weekends. I was very flattered and really enjoyed the attention. The only problem was I did not really like this popular girl. She was actually quite vicious and boys in the school were not too crazy about her either. She had become very popular by being extremely calculating politically and was gifted at forming cliques and playing people off one another. To this day, I am confident she is probably the head of the social pecking order wherever she is. Because this girl liked me so much, I suddenly found myself socializing with kids who were a couple of years older than I was. Additionally, everyone seemed to be extremely interested in being my friend.

One day after school I was hanging out with a group of three of the most attractive girls in our class. The girl that was so enamored with me was not there. We were all sitting around one of their bedrooms playing cards. I started talking to one of the girls and we really got along quite well. We were interested in the same things and, to make a long story short, I really liked this girl and she liked me. I invited her over for dinner and we spoke on the phone late into the evening that night.

Things were normal at school the next day (a Friday), but by Sunday I realized not only my admirer but the new girl I had met were not taking or returning my calls. By Monday my “girlfriend” had not only stopped talking to me completely, but she had employed various “goons” around the school to help express her displeasure; they would bump into me in the halls a little too aggressively. I had a few very uncomfortable moments in places like the lunch room where I walked up to groups of people and they dispersed. These were people who had been my friends only a day or so previously.

While I was only attending that school for a short time, I made perhaps the biggest mistake I could have made: I gave up and started feeling bad about the whole thing. Although I had not really done anything all that bad, I felt as if I had really let my “girlfriend” down by socializing with another girl. In terms of responding, my “girlfriend” knew what to do. She proceeded to have her friends and others stop talking to me. In addition, she let her wrath show in other ways that were immature but served a purpose in terms of getting me down. One thing I remember was a prank phone call where she and a bunch of girls (I think, at least) were screaming in the background they hated me.

While I should have reacted in an equally savage way, my reaction was to withdraw. I knew I would only be at the school a short while longer and so I decided to feel depressed about the whole thing. I allowed this to affect:

-My grades

-Meeting new people

-Where I sat at lunch each day

-How I walked from class to class each day

-My social aspirations at the school

-My extracurricular aspirations at the school

In fact, this one little episode was something that really sent me into a serious downward spiral. It was a particularly bad episode because I did not know anyone at the school and once this girl enacted her vengeance I felt defeated. The truth, of course, was I overreacted and it was not that big of a deal. I allowed something quite trivial to really affect me in a negative way.

How many times have you allowed something quite trivial to affect you in a negative way? In your career, have you ever overreacted to an insult? If you were fired from a job, did you get depressed and withdraw? If you searched for a job for a long time with no success, did you let your failure to find the ideal job get you down?

The following story about Michael Jordan relates his key to success, and the key to doing well in everything. Jordan is widely viewed as the best basketball player of all time, but when he tried out for his high school basketball team, he didn’t make it. His reaction could have been exactly like mine when he failed to make the team. He could have become depressed and stopped socializing with the other high school basketball players. He could have given up on athletics and started doing something else, like spending his time with bad kids. He could have allowed himself to get fat and lazy. There are a multitude of things Jordan could have done when he failed to make the high school basketball team.

Think about your own life. What have you done when you failed at something?

Jordan’s reaction was to fight like hell. He started practicing more. He used his disappointment to propel him toward trying harder and harder and getting better and better. After only two years of college basketball (he made his college team), Jordan became a professional player. The rest is history.

In an interview with Jordan several years ago he was describing the secret to his success. In this interview he said when he is insulted by other people he allows these insults to just “build up,” and then he uses them as “jet fuel” for his next game. Anything bad that happens to him and any slight he receives he uses to make himself better at his game and give him passion.

Think of all of the negative things that have happened to you in your life. Think of all of the negative things that have happened to you in your career. Perhaps you have been fired. Perhaps you have been passed over for a promotion. Perhaps someone does not see or realize a particular skill that you have. Perhaps someone has treated you unfairly. Perhaps someone is treating you unfairly now.

I am sure you are like most of us and bad things have happened to you. Your reaction is the key to whether you succeed or fail.

One of my favorite rock bands is Def Leppard. I liked this band even more when I found out their drummer lost one of his arms in a motorcycle accident and kept drumming. Instead of quitting, the drummer learned to drum with one hand. Imagine the passion this must have taken. Isn’t this a wonderful example of perseverance? The drummer is also probably better known now that he works with one arm than he was when he had two.

You need to use every single negative thing that happens to you as “jet fuel” to drive your dreams and ambitions forward. The worst thing you can do is allow something negative to push you down and keep you down. Make negative things the most positive thing that could have ever happened to you. If many negative things happen you can just keep getting more fuel. Keep storing this fuel up and the world will not know what happened once you start going.

A list of some of Abraham Lincoln’s setbacks is below:

1831 – Lost his job
1832 – Defeated in run for Illinois State Legislature
1833 – Failed in business
1834 – Elected to Illinois State Legislature (success)
1835 – Sweetheart died
1836 – Had nervous breakdown
1838 – Defeated in run for Illinois House Speaker
1843 – Defeated in run for nomination for U.S. Congress
1846 – Elected to U.S. Congress (success)
1848 – Lost re-nomination
1849 – Rejected for land officer position
1854 – Defeated in run for U.S. Senate
1856 – Defeated in run for nomination for vice president
1858 – Again defeated in run for U.S. Senate
1860 – Elected U.S. President (success)

Think about all of Lincoln’s failures. Many people would give up on life after a nervous breakdown. Not Lincoln. The message here is more than just perseverance. The message I want you to understand is you need to use every single negative thing that happens to you as fuel to drive you forward. Get passionate.

The success of most individuals is largely based on how they handle setbacks. Bad things can warp and ruin many peoples’ lives. Some examples are:

-Job loss

-Divorce

-Bad relationships

For many people, a bad experience can become a filter for how they view their lives. They begin having an expectation in the future that other bad things will happen and begin to avoid situations where they believe these bad things will occur. They also often begin associating with others who support them in their negative view of the world. Think about negative groups of people you may know like this. Low achievers avoid situations where there has been some sort of pain before. They allow this pain to continue influencing them. Children often close so many doors in their life by simply avoiding areas where they have been in pain before. Adults do the same thing. Instead, imagine the power you would have if you used something negative to change your life and rechanneled your experiences into something more positive.

Another issue I want to bring up briefly involves finding your “jet fuel.” A huge mistake many people make is not being honest with themselves about the emotions they are actually feeling. Many people who may feel angry, sad, or hurt do not allow themselves to ever experience the pain associated with whatever caused them to feel bad. You need to experience the pain; the pain you feel is actually a very good thing. Experience the pain and then use this pain to fire you up to do better in the future. When you know that you can use negative energy in a positive way you will never have to be fearful of bad experiences because you will know these experiences will ultimately help you and not hurt you.

Never close down. Take punishment and learn from it.

The best lessons we get from life are from the bad things that happen to us. You can do more than learn from negative experiences, you can use them to fire you up.

Think about the power of taking intense negative energy and using this energy positively. This is a massive advantage and something that will help you greatly. If something bad happens, channel this energy into something positive. This will change your life and your career.

Helpers and Non-Helpers

In the book All I Want is Everything, Marion Preminger discusses the viewpoint of her husband, a missionary doctor in Africa: “Albert Schweitzer says there are two kinds of people. There are helpers, and there are non-helpers. I thank God he allowed me to become a helper, and in helping, I found everything.”

What You Will Learn There are two types of people in the world, helpers and non-helpers. Choosing to be a helper or a non-helper will have a major impact on the course of your life. Always make an effort to contribute and help others – through both physical actions as well as through your thoughts. Communicate and think positive messages about others. Be a helper which involves your intent, your spirit and where you are coming from, deep down.

Preminger’s life is so instructive and inspirational because it discusses a woman who moved from being a non-helper to a helper, and how stunning this transformation was for her. In my experience, I would say the author is correct in saying that there really are two types of people in the world, helpers and non-helpers. Choosing to be a helper or a non-helper will have a major impact on the course of your life, no matter how much education you get, and no matter what sort of job you get.

Life, in general, revolves around finding opportunity, making money, developing friendship, discovering love and moving towards those who help, and away from those who do not help. Whenever you look at the most successful and the happiest people out there, you will almost invariably find that these people are helpers, always making an effort to contribute and help others. In addition to doing this through physical actions, they also do this through their thoughts. They communicate and think positive messages about others. Being a helper is about more than just the things you do. It involves your intent, your spirit and where you are coming from, deep down. The deeper and more powerful your positive intent is, the more of a helper you will be.

Conversely, the non-helpers are always more concerned about their immediate needs and what others can do for them. The non-helpers always make sure that their actions are calculated and that what they receive in return is more than what they put out. In addition, there is a kind of spiritual and energetic level to non-helpers as well. The non-helpers are typically the sorts of people who rationalize negative actions towards others, who are jealous and envious of others, and who are always judging others. Unfortunately, many people are non-helpers. Non-helpers may be successful for a period of time, but even when they are, they are unhappy.

Several years ago, when the business I run was first getting started, I was working incredibly long hours. I was in the office seven days a week and was generally there from 8:00 in the morning until at least 8:00 or 9:00 each night. The business was growing rapidly but was also financially challenged and short-staffed, as it was just getting off the ground. After work each evening, I would go home, order some food and then work until midnight or 1:00 each morning. Then, a few hours later, I would get up and start the next day, and do it all over again. I was completely into this, and was giving the business my all.

I was working with one guy in particular who had told me on several occasions that he wanted to be my partner in the business. His work schedule and overall contribution to the business was much different from mine, however. For example, he might get in at 7:00 am and leave by 1:00 pm each day. He would never be there on the weekends. He was always asking for more money, making excuses for not working more, taking lots of trips and vacations, and telling me how he wanted all sorts of stock in the business. In addition, he seemed to spend more time thinking about the rewards the business should give him, rather than what he could do to make it better. He was earning a decent amount of money while doing the minimum amount of work–just enough to keep himself employed.

One Sunday I was working in our file room, busily organizing various papers. These were papers that contained information that the man and I both used on a daily basis; they were important because their efficient organization helped us do our jobs better. I had gotten to the office at around 9:00 am that day and at around 11:00 this guy walked in to pick something up that he had left at the office. He had just come from a sporting competition in which he had participated, and apparently he had only planned on popping into the office for no more than a few minutes. He walked into his office, grabbed what he was looking for and then heard me rustling around in the file room. He walked in to see what I was up to.

He looked somewhat disappointed; he knew I was doing something that I had asked him to do on several occasions. He had never done the job, so I was just taking care of it. I was not upset about it because, one way or another, it just needed to get done. When he saw me, the guy said:

“I know I have been promising to do this for weeks. Here, let me help you. But I only have 45 minutes because I want to go to a movie this afternoon, so let’s finish this up fast!”

I knew there was no way in the world we could accomplish the job that quickly, but I was grateful for the help. As he started doing the work, I noticed that he kept looking at his watch. He was also being quite careless, filing papers in the wrong area and so forth–and seemed very distracted. Eventually I got pretty annoyed and said to him:

“Listen, I will finish up this work. Don’t worry about it.”

He looked at me with a long sort of stare. The stare seemed to say something along the lines of “this work you are doing is not that important” and “just let me slack off”. This was a pivotal event in this guy’s career in many respects, and it was at that moment when I realized very firmly that this person was not the sort of partner I wanted to have. He simply was not up to contributing and giving his all, and was unwilling to devote himself wholeheartedly to the job. Taking into account that morning’s events, as well as some previous incidents, it was really crystallized for me that the guy was more of a taker than a contributor; therefore he was not someone I wanted to conceivably spend the rest of my life working with.

All people have limits as to how much they are willing to give in life and in their work, and these limits are often put to the test. A law firm may choose to promote someone who works 3,200 hours versus 2,800 hours a year, on the basis that the person who works 3,200 hours is more of a contributor. I have seen this scenario before, and the attorney who only worked 2,800 hours was shown the door, while the other one was promoted. These could be two equally talented people who went to top law schools and worked hard to be partners in a law firm for ten or more years. It all came down to one person putting in that extra 400 hours and being that much more of a contributor to the firm. This is how it often works in life. The person who is seen as the greatest helper becomes the least expendable, and is usually the person who gets the brass ring.

The more of a helper you are, the better you will do, and the happier you will be in life. Being a helper requires that you share, give and contribute in a manner that is unselfish. Many people are willing to share but only with conditions, and they do so for the wrong reasons. For example, some people may share just so others do not judge them in a negative light. Others may share because they feel that sharing makes them significant. Some will simply share due to a feeling of peer pressure, like the guy who wanted to be my partner did. Some may share because they want to be recognized for their sharing. People share; however, a great many people are sharing and contributing for reasons that have more to do with them than others.

It is a great challenge for people to move from being perceived as non-helpers, to being perceived as wholeheartedly sharing and giving of themselves. You generally cannot fake being a helper. For a time someone can suddenly appear to be contributing, but people are sensitive to this and can see through someone faking it. Your sharing attitude needs to come from within and it needs to be a bona fide part of you. When you become a true helper, you will move into another realm of living and even consciousness. When you reach this realm your life and career will change for the better.

The story of Marion Preminger is one of the most inspiring stories that I have ever heard. She was born in Hungary in a large castle. She was raised incredibly well, like an aristocrat, and had numerous privileges that very few people could ever hope for or imagine.

She was in Vienna at a ball and met the handsome son of an Italian doctor, and got married a short time later. The marriage only lasted a year. She then returned to Vienna and a short time later and met a director named Otto Preminger, and the two of them married and moved to Los Angeles. Within a short time, Otto’s directing career took off and he became very famous and wealthy. Marion soon blossomed as a Hollywood socialite, and the couple became very well known throughout Hollywood.

The stress of this life became very difficult for Marion. She soon became addicted to drugs and alcohol. In addition, she gained a reputation for having had multiple affairs. Otto eventually divorced her, and afterwards Marion tried to commit suicide on three separate occasions. She then left Hollywood and returned to Vienna.

When she was back in Vienna she met a doctor, Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer was known as a missionary doctor and he was on leave from his hospital in Africa. She first met him when he was playing an organ in a church. After meeting him she spent all of her time with Schweitzer, before he returned to Africa. When it was time for the doctor to return to Africa, Marion pleaded with him to take her with him, and he agreed.

For the rest of her life, the woman who had spent most of her life living like a princess became a servant inside the hospital. She changed bedpans, bathed people, changed bandages and helped care for lepers and other sick and diseased people.

Very few people can make others the focus of their efforts. Instead, most people are more focused on what others can do for them, and only act when they believe they will receive a corresponding reward for their efforts. Marion discovered a new love for life as a helper, and she threw herself into it.

Throughout most of her Marion’s life she had been taking from others and had been the constant center of attention. When she moved to Africa, her entire focus was shifted towards helping others–those who had no ability whatsoever to reward her for her efforts. This is the power of the life that she eventually led as a nurse and caregiver in Africa. When she became someone who shared rather than took from others, she found her own true happiness.

Sharing requires that we get out of our comfort zone. It requires that we do something for others without any hope of a reward. It requires that we make others the focus of our efforts and not make ourselves the focus of our lives. If you are going to really reach your potential and become the person you are capable of being, you need to concentrate on putting out positive energy towards others and helping those around you. When you are benefiting others you become a better person. People seek you out in employment situations. People advance you in your job. People respect you. All in all, you create an abundance of positive energy coming towards you.

Many people spend their time and energy being jealous of others, judging others and reacting in an angry way towards the world. This was the life that Marion had had before she moved to Africa. When you are judging others, jealous of others and so forth, you are living a life that is primarily centered around your need to feel significant. This need to feel significant pushes negative energy towards others, which ultimately comes back to you in the form of more negative energy. In Marion’s case this was manifested in the form of the drugs, suicide attempts and the failure of her marriage. Only when she concentrated on putting out positive energy and truly, deep down being a giving person, did her life change for the better. Very few people are ever able to make such a shift in consciousness in order to become a helper.

When you go through life as just another part of the crowd, you are generally going to be in a position of reacting and taking more than you are giving. Distinguish yourself from the crowd by unlocking the power of sharing and contributing.

When you find that you are jealous of others, that you are angry and are constantly judging others, the best thing you possibly can do is redirect your focus, and concentrate on thinking positive and compassionate thoughts about those around you. A judgmental attitude towards others translates into a judgmental attitude towards ourselves. You need to feel and see others in a positive light–the same way you would want to see yourself. Moving towards caring about others offers the hidden reward of making you care about yourself.

Surround Yourself with Positive People

What You Will Learn Positive people reinforce positivity, impregnate the environment with positive energy, and allow good things to happen. Negative people sap your energy and make you feel that nothing is worth doing. Even a single negative person in a group of persons is enough to bring down the energy level of the entire group and make work very difficult. It is a big enough challenge to remain positive; you do not want to deal with the constant negativity of another person. It is important to surround yourself with positive people if you want to succeed in life.

A few years ago I made friends with a guy I met at a self improvement seminar. It was his second time attending the seminar; apparently he had gotten incredible results the first time around.

According to the guy, he had lost 50 pounds, had given up drinking and drugs, was cured of his ADD, stopped working 14 hours a day every day of the week, started exercising daily, dramatically improved his marriage and family life and started a successful new career–all after attending the seminar. He credited this massive and profound life turnaround to going to the seminar. In fact, he had gone from a relatively depressed and financially non-notable life before attending the seminar, to a new life making over $2,000,000 a year, working only a few days a week. He had even turned somewhat religious and started playing the guitar for children at services once a week.

As I learned, the big take away this man had gotten from the seminar was that it had enabled him to make such a significant life shift. I was pretty amazed. In all honesty, to me the seminar we attended had not been all that special. It was all about getting in touch with your feelings; however, it was certainly not the sort of thing that would have led me to make massive changes in my life.

I was intrigued by all of this because this guy was not anything like the sort of person he described himself to have been before he attended his first seminar. It was hard to imagine. For example, the friend I knew was on a calorie-restricted diet and generally seemed to be a happy person in all respects. He seemed very well balanced. Since he was so successful, I was interested in learning his success secrets so that I could share them with other people.

“What has made you so happy and successful? What was it you got out of the seminar that made everything change for you?” I asked him one evening.

We were in New York in the basement of the Time Warner Building, in a small Whole Foods shop that sold gifts made from hemp. It was a Thursday evening and my friend was chatting with the cashier in the store while he looked for presents for his kids. Everywhere this guy went people seemed to pick up his happy energy and return his smile. We might be walking through a hotel and he would stop and start chatting with a complete stranger about this or that. He was always chatting with strangers in hotels and different places. People just gravitated towards this guy, and he was genuinely happy to see just about anyone.

“The only thing I do differently now that I did not do before when I was so unhappy is make sure I associate with positive people. That’s it. Just associate with positive people.”

At the time I did not think much of it, but I have come to realize more and more that associating with positive people is among the most important things we can do in our lives. As long as you share in the energy of positive actions and thoughts, and surround yourself with people who have a positive energy, there are few limits to what you can accomplish in your life. Your attitude–how you feel about your life is among the most important concepts governing your existence on this earth. The more positive your attitude is, the better off you will be in your career and in your life.

When you surround yourself with people who are happy, driven and well balanced, you too are more likely to become happy, driven and well balanced. In addition, these people will not drain energy from you and you will feel better when you are around them.

I remember the time when I had my first legal job and working over the summer for the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. I was enjoying the job a great deal and having a wonderful summer. I had friends in Washington, D.C. at the time and my friends were all pretty positive and nice people who were excited about the future. I had been working there a few weeks when one day I decided to make a telephone call to a friend in another city. I had this acquaintance who was always very down and complaining about one thing or another. The person would use drugs often and always seemed to be going through one personal crisis or another. I never realized really how toxic this person was; however, when I called back home everything hit me:

• The person spoke in depressed tones.
• Everything that came out of the person’s mouth was about something negative.
• The person did not make me feel good, and acted like I was a loser for spending my summer working.
• The person told me bad news about various other people.

I could go into further detail but, it should suffice to say, I had not realized how negative this person was, or made me feel, until I put down the phone. When I put down the phone, all the enthusiasm I had for my work–as good as I felt about myself, my job and everything else in the world that I was excited about, seemed to suddenly fade into the background. I felt a deep sense of lack and sadness deep in my soul. It was a feeling I will never forget because it was like running into a brick wall. It took me hours to overcome it and to feel better about myself. The entire experience was depressing in a monumental sort of way.

The reason this experience was so depressing, I think, was because it contrasted with how I had been feeling at the present time and over the previous few weeks. I had been away from this person for some time and had never realized before how negatively he had been affecting me day-to-day. My conversation with the person was really no different from the conversations I had with him in the past–it was only the contrast that made it so glaringly different this time. A short time later I decided that it was not in my best interest to remain friends with this person, and I am sure I was better off for it.

I am sure you have had similar experiences as well:

• You may be feeling very good and then encounter a very depressed person, and suddenly you too become depressed.
• You may be feeling very bad and then encounter someone who is very happy, and suddenly you too become happy.

Moods are quite contagious and they can often instantly affect us in a positive or a negative way.

When I was in my first year of high school I was a competitive tennis player. I would play tennis against pros and other very good players. While I was nowhere near as good a tennis player as a professional, I would always make for a challenging match against my opponent, and we would have long volleys and somewhat competitive games. I always felt I was playing much better tennis when I played with the best players than when I would play against average or poor players. When I played against average or poor players I would find myself moving more slowly, hitting more balls out of bounds, missing more serves and not having as much fun. The poor players I played against often destabilized my game. I would hit ridiculous and stupid shots where the ball would fly from the tennis court into the road and hit cars, for example. It was embarrassing.

The company you keep can either make you rise, or bring you down. One of my favorite quotes is from John Steinbeck who wrote: “A sad soul can kill you far quicker than a germ.”

Do you associate with people who improve your game? Or do you surround yourself with people who destabilize your career and life?

Who you call your friends and acquaintances tells a lot about who you are. In order to be happy and successful it is important to surround yourself with other people who are happy and successful. You need to be very careful in terms of who you let into your sphere of influence. Positive energy spreads quickly–just as negative energy does.

One of the greatest characteristics I have found in the best legal recruiters I have worked with is the ability to be continually positive. Over the years I have hired and worked with a large number of legal recruiters in our company and one of my greatest concerns has always been making sure I have positive people working for us. I would rather have 10 positive recruiters working in our company than 100 negative recruiters–even if the total financial cost were the same. Negative people infect others and bring an entire group down.

One of my favorite movies is 300, which is about a group of 300 Spartans who fight against thousands of Persians. The Spartans have an incredible positive spirit that empowers them to do well. 300 is a great movie because it shows what a small group with the right mindset can do against a much larger force. I believe the Spartans’ strength in the film comes from their ability to remain positive.

Have you ever attended a meeting in which there is someone throwing out a long diatribe of doubts and fears about this or that? People like this typically drag down the whole group, and make things extremely difficult for everyone. It is hard for groups of people to get motivated when there is even one extremely negative person in their midst.

You life is valuable and your time is as well. It is challenging enough to remain positive and continually enjoy our lives, while feeling good about yourself. The last thing you need in your career is to deal with another person’s constant negativity.

Your career and life will change for the better when you learn to surround yourself with positive people–and keep the negative ones away.

My Lesson From the Missionaries

What You Will Learn Be in the company of happy and enthusiastic people with good attitudes. Do not associate with people who have the ability to plant negative thoughts and ideas in your mind. Be on the side that is productive, not on the one that’s destructive.

Several years ago I was working at a law firm and virtually from the moment I arrived a woman I’ll call “Linda” used to come into my office for a few hours a day to talk. Her topic?  How bad things were at the law firm.

She would share one rumor after the other about how many bad things were going on at the law firm. I was treated to information about allegedly corrupt activities, affairs, who did not like who, incredible insights into who was about to be fired, what different people had said to her, and more.  Most of these conversations would occur behind closed doors, and after she left I often wondered to myself what I was doing at such a horrible law firm.

Her visits would always leave me a little depressed.  I wondered what I was doing with my life, associating with and being involved with such a horrible group of people.  I had actually joined the law firm thinking it was a great place and in many respects, it was.  I was able to push aside what Linda was talking about generally about 45 minutes after she left and continue to enthusiastically pursue my job the best I could.

When I would get back to work not more than an hour or two later the phone would ring and it was Linda.

“Guess what?” she would say. She would then proceed to relay to me another rumor of some sort.

I even made pretty good friends with Linda, and these meetings eventually turned into conversations where she started telling me about men in the office she was interested in, antidepressants she was taking, and who she had previously been involved with.  On the weekends she would call me, and my fiánce at the time would hand me the phone as Linda related yet another rumor about the law firm she learned about over the weekend.  I have no idea how Linda managed to get any work done at the law firm.  I also had no idea why she had chosen to come to work there.  She was literally spending every spare moment gossiping about how bad the law firm was.

Then Linda started going on interviews with various employers.  She was very well-spoken, had gone to the #1 ranked law school in the country at the time, and was quite attractive.  She very quickly got numerous job offers.  She then gave notice at the law firm and if I recall correctly she “let the law firm have it” in terms of telling them everything she thought was wrong with them.  Her “vent” was pretty epic and involved all sorts of observations as well as deep psychological-type analyses of her supervisors and others, which left the powers that be in the law firm stunned.  After this incredible episode she still wanted me to pal around the law firm with her by sitting with her in the law firm library and walking past the offices of the same partners in the law firm she had bitterly put down when she resigned. This was all too much for me.  She had really upset a lot of people.

“Linda,” I told her.  “This place is not really that bad.  I think you have just been making it bad by looking for all of the bad stuff.  Everyone is really upset with you right now.  I am trying to have a career here.  I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t hang out with me all the time at work.  I need to hold on to my job.  I’m getting married soon and will have a wife to support, a mortgage to pay, and other responsibilities.  I really cannot afford to be associated with this.”

I had reached this decision because I knew my association with Linda was really hurting me.  I knew her attitude was casting a negative light on me to some extent.  Looking around me at the law firm, I could see numerous people who had been there for decades.  Could the place be so bad if there were people who had managed to work at the same place for so long?  I knew the answer to this particular question was “no” and that much of what was being seen was simply through Linda’s eyes.

How do you think it makes you feel about your job if someone is coming in a couple of times a day and telling you how awful your workplace is?  What if your phone were ringing off the hook with gossip about your co-workers?  Even if these things were true, do you think this does you any good?

There are generally people in all organizations who seem dedicated to walking around spreading rumors of doom and gloom.  I have witnessed it throughout my career–even in organizations that were doing well.  I wonder how these people get any work done.  It seems more like these people are involved in a soap opera than anything else.  They are constantly doing everything within their power to spread fear among their co-workers. I certainly witnessed this sort of thing when I was working.  It is going on everywhere.

Several years ago I was attending a wedding in rural Utah about 90 minutes outside of Provo.  My cousin was marrying a lovely woman from this area who had moved to New York City to become an on-air news anchor at a local television station.  The videographer walked up to me and started talking to me. 

“I’ve done only a few weddings for 12 year-old girls, about twice as many for 13 year-old girls,” he told me.  “I’ve done many 14 year-old weddings.  I just did one last week,”  he told me gruffly and matter-of-factly.  He was referring to the fact that older men were marrying women at that age.  (I would learn later in the evening that some of the men getting married to these 14 year old girls not only often had 5+ other wives, but also that many of them were in their 50s.)  Videotaping the weddings of young girls to older men was a very normal thing to him.  I could not believe it.  You hear about this sort of stuff on television and in the movies but I did not realize how prevalent this actually was.  I was mesmerized by this particular conversation and others that led me to question if I was really part of the United States.  You can learn so much by talking to people, especially in rural Utah.

As the man and I continued to speak he told me that he was very involved with the county and the workforce services part of the county.  In fact, he was in charge of recruiting employers from out-of-state to come to his county to hire people.  He explained to me many people chose to live in this part of the country because of their Mormon faith. He said many of them actually go away to schools like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) then come back because family is so important in their religion.  He then explained there were incredibly talented people in the county who were interested in working for sophisticated companies.  This was music to my ears.  I really liked the people I was meeting because they were much more wholesome than the people I was accustomed to dealing with in Los Angeles.

I had also had an experience several years ago with some Mormon missionaries that made me decide I would do whatever I could to help Mormons in the future. 

I had been living in Bay City, Michigan, working for a federal judge and one Saturday while I was watching a football game and immersed in a bowl of Doritos with a bunch of empty Diet Cokes in front of me, I heard the doorbell ring.  I did not have a lot of friends in Bay City and was eager for any company I could get. 

Into my apartment walked two of the nicest guys I had ever met.  They had name tags on, white starched shirts, and little black bicycles.  I let them in and they gave me a Bible and some literature. At the time my fiance was out of town, and I was pretty bored and enjoyed the company.  They told me they would stop back in a couple of days to talk to me some more.

After a couple more visits during which they related to me fascinating information about their religion, they gave me an ultimatum.  I really liked these guys and Mormonism sounded great.  I grew up Episcopalian and at the time I was not too happy with the religion.  My uncle is actually a pretty famous Episcopal Priest and had agreed to officiate my wedding which was scheduled to happen in about six months.  Then he’d told me he didn’t want to because he disliked my father.  This was really a bit too much for me.  I thought religions were supposed to be about peace and love.  These Mormon guys were very likable.  What I liked best about their religion was they promised me if I converted, after I died I would get my own planet with my wife and children.  Listening to stuff like this really fascinated me.  It was like playing Dungeons and Dragons–only it was real.  I also liked their values, the structure, and felt it was an all-in-all great religion.  I still like Mormonism to this day and feel a strong connection with it.

“We’d like to have you down to our church. However, before we can go any further with you we are going to have to ask you to have your fiance move out of the house.  You are living in sin and this is impeding your spiritual development.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

My fiance and I had been together for years and she moved to Bay City with me from Chartlottesville, Virginia, and we were engaged.  There was no way this was happening.  I looked at these guys and realized they were quite serious.  A week previously they had requested I not eat or drink anything (even water!) for a day–I obliged.  They were also hinting that I should never drink coffee or my beloved Diet Coke any longer.  They also told me I should be prepared to give them 10% of all the money I made.  Finally, they told me I should never drink alcohol.  These guys were beginning to get annoying.

I told those nice 18 year-old guys I appreciated their spiritual lessons but did not think they should continue.  There was no way I was asking my fiance to move out.

About three months later the guys stopped by again.  It was spring at this point, and I had brought out from storage a 550 gallon tanker I towed behind my Suburban that I filled with asphalt sealant each year.  To the horror of my neighbors it was sitting directly in front of my apartment looking mean and ugly.

I had been doing asphalt work since the age of 18 and was excited to get back in business during the weekends while working for the judge.  The thing about this tank is that you can never get all of the sealer out of it at the end of the season.  Because it snows in Michigan you cannot apply the sealer to asphalt then.  The asphalt sealer in the tank hardens up and turns into a clay-like material.  You have to climb inside the tank and scrape all of the material out.  There are agitators and other things inside the tank that do no work unless you do this. It typically took me about15 hours to do this each year.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” they asked after we exchanged some pleasantries.

“Yeah, you can scrape that stuff out of the tank sitting there,” I told them.  “Other than that I do not have any problems I am concerned about at the moment.”  I was kidding of course.

The next day I came home and apparently all the missionaries from miles around had come and climbed in the tank and cleaned it out.  They did not leave me a note or anything.  I never saw the missionaries again.  I promised myself from that day forward if I ever had a chance to do anything for Mormons in my life I would.  This was an incredible gesture of kindness and I appreciated it.  They had done this expecting nothing in return.

As the videographer at the party talked I told him I was in a position to hire people.  I remembered the kindness the missionaries had shown me and wanted to give back.  The videographer told me how high the unemployment rate was, and I told him I would do everything I could to hire people in the town.  A few weeks later I showed up with several of my managers and made arrangements to come to the unemployment office and start interviewing people.  We found office space and made preparations to shift a substantial majority of our operations to this rural Utah area.

A few weeks later, we proceeded to hire at least 10-15 people from the unemployment office.  We rented a truck and went to Sam’s Club in Provo and purchased computers, desks, chairs and tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for our new office.  All of the new employees helped us set up the office.  Metaphorically, it was almost as if my experience with these wonderfully nice people years ago had caused this religion to create this office sitting there.

A few weeks into the process I started realizing there were problems.  Most of the people whom we had hired had been unemployed for months, and in some cases years, before they were hired.  The small staff I had hired on a mission of goodwill started talking like they should be unionized.  An incredible number of destructive rumors started going around the office that made it back to our headquarters in Pasadena, California.  The people we had hired often started disappearing for hours during the day.  Absenteeism was extremely high.  Errors were high.  The office was sitting in the shadow of one of the largest and most significant temples in the Mormon religion.  In fact, with the exception of one employee in the office, the work was the worst I have ever seen.  There were other issues there going on as well.  We even had an issue where a married couple was sexually harassing a young employee in our call center because they wanted her to be part of a polygamous relationship with them.  When I heard about this, it was the last straw.  The fact that such people were producing negative news and negative energy in addition to the sexual harassment stories was too much to handle.

I sent a couple of trucks from Pasadena and some managers to Utah and packed up everything in the office and closed the office down.  The same day I decided there was one good employee there who was actually exceptional and kept her.  She is still working here to this day and has risen to become one of the most exceptional managers in the company.  She rebuilt the office there and it has been very, very successful. It is one of the best things I have ever done for our business.

What I learned from this, however, is that there are people who should not be hired.  The people from the unemployment office were unemployed for a reason: they were cancerous to their organizations.  People who spread negative energy and news are like cancers to companies and to their co-workers.  One of the best hires I ever made was almost brought down by this cancer.  You need to be very careful about cancerous people because they can hurt you.  Stay away and keep your job.  This was an important lesson I learned in Utah.  Today we have a great operation there and it is filled with great people who have good attitudes.  The company has learned it’s important to keep only happy and enthusiastic people around.

Most of us are put in positions where people are planting negative thoughts and ideas in our mind.  You cannot afford to be associated with this at work.  Negative information, rumors and so forth are like a cancer.  They will spread to you and take you down as well.  Positive energy is the opposite.  Positive energy creates good and makes things better.  The positive energy of the Mormon missionaries created the office we currently have in Utah.  The spirit of giving they emphasized is something that has created millions of dollars in payroll for a community that is probably 99% Mormon.  This would not have happened without their positive energy.  The negative energy of the chronically unemployed I hired almost took all of that away.  The rumors, innuendo and scheming could have seriously damaged the company.  While good always wins out in the end, you want to be on the side that is growing and productive – not on the side that is bringing things down.  If you follow this advice you will have much fewer bumps in your career.