Address Small Weaknesses For Big Gains

Several months ago I was trying to sell a commercial property and had the most ridiculous time contacting the selling agent. I would get a call that would go something like this: “Hi, I have an offer on the property. Please call me back to discuss.” These calls would typically come at 7:00 am or 9:00 pm, during which I was generally unreachable. Excited about the offer, I would call the agent back. I would try him two or three times throughout the day and never reach him. This process [Read more]

Treating Your Career Like A Small Business

No one seems to take the time to consider that their careers are businesses. Your career is no different than any small business. You have a product (you) that you are selling to your audience (your employer). You need to run your career exactly like a business person runs a business. There is no greater skill to have with your career than to run it like a business. As a business, your goal is survival and to sell your product for as much money as possible. So too it is with your career.

Be a good business person and your career may go far, ignore the business realities and you are likely to run into trouble. I have been a recruiter for several years and have [Read more]

Learn from Every Experience You Have Ever Had

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to learn from every single experience you have ever had. Each and every day you are having experiences, and you choose what to do with them. The wisest people are the ones who see every experience as an opportunity to learn. Smart people can transform even the smallest experiences into lessons that drive them to become better at everything they undertake in the future. You, too, can learn from your experiences and, in so doing, benefit tremendously. In every experience, there are things that did and did not work for you. Your objective is to learn from what happened. The more you learn from your experiences, the more effective you will be at whatever you do in your career and life. Think back on your career: there are things that have happened from which you can still learn. What lessons can you use to drive yourself forward? How can you get better at what you want to do now? Every experience, no matter how trivial, offers a chance for you to learn. I’d like to tell you a story about just such an experience of mine and how I shaped my life by learning from it. Years ago, when I was in college and about 19 years old, I was sitting in the television room of my dorm at the University of Chicago. As I sat there with a friend of mine, Danny Weisberg, a commercial came on for a real estate seminar led by a man named Tom Vu. In the 30-minute commercial, Tom Vu was shown driving around in fancy cars and on boats with beautiful women while talking about his real estate seminar. As I watched this commercial with Danny, I was incredulous when, near the end of the commercial, Tom Vu said something to the effect of: “I came to the United States from Vietnam with no money, and the only job I could get was as a man who refilled peoples’ water glasses in a country club. One day, a very rich man came into the country club and sat down at a table. I asked him to tell me the secret to his success and he told me it came [Read more]

Your Ultimate Goal: How You Can Find Job Security

One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice whatsoever. It can be devastating to lose your source of income unexpectedly, especially in a contracting economy. Losing a job can color our perspective on the world and our future. Going forward, we have a difficult time allowing ourselves to ever feel secure again. We believe that things can change in an instant and that we might be suddenly out of a job again. This fear of sudden job loss is something that many people who have [Read more]

The Greek Parthenon and Your Career

One of the most important lessons for our lives and careers comes from the Parthenon in Greece. The Parthenon has been standing in the same location for almost 2,500 years and is considered one of the world’s great cultural monuments. It is largely because of the Parthenon’s multiple columns that the Parthenon has survived for so long. If you understand and employ the lessons of the Parthenon, you should never have any issues with feeling secure in your career and life. I personally have run my career according to what I call the Parthenon [Read more]

Do Not Ever Be Afraid to Broadcast Your Value

One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote: “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” A similar quote is this: “Build a better mousetrap, fail to advertise it or let people know about it, and the world will beat a path around your door.” If people don’t know about the true value of what you are offering, they will simply ignore you. You need to broadcast your value constantly in everything you do. Let me share with you a pair of quick stories about how to [Read more]