How You Handle Chaos Will Determine Your Success Or Failure

Yesterday I received a telephone call at 9:00 am from an employee who had been working for a recruiting company of ours for less than 72 hours and was giving notice before boarding an airplane.  We had brought this particular employee out to work for us from another city and were training her in Pasadena before she fled home to the city she is from. During this employee’s 72 hours with the company, she witnessed numerous changes we were forcing ourselves to go through.  One of our largest businesses was formerly a student loan company.  Despite the fact that the number of loans we are doing is down 98% from this time last year due to the difficulty of making loans in this economic climate, we still had some employees unnecessarily on the payroll in the hope that things would pick up.  We were in the process of letting some of them go.  This new person was witness to much of the chaos these remaining layoffs in this business have created in our company. While we are understandably doing fantastically well in several of our businesses, the loan industry is not one of them.  Moreover, our company has recently replaced its Chief Financial Officer and its Human Resources person.  This has resulted in an incredible amount [Read more]

Do Not Be Controlled By Your Need to Feel Significant

When I was around 15 years old, I was in front of an ice cream parlor in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and there was a large group of kids around my age gathered around a well-dressed man who appeared to be in his mid 30s.  The man was wearing a good-looking dress shirt, khakis and good shoes.  I quickly realized, however, that the kids were all making fun of him.  The man was quite off emotionally, and all he kept saying was that he used to work for a United States Congressman.  The kids were all making fun of him and [Read more]

How You Deal With Problems Will Determine Quality of Your Life

One of the things I have learned over the years is anyone can be up when things are going well. However, the real challenge is when things are not going well. All businesses and all relationships go through problems, and how you deal with problems will determine the quality of your life. Far too few people know how to effectively deal with problems, and they end up having their lives sidetracked by them. The more you delay dealing with problems the more they build up. The more problems are allowed to build up the more difficult your life ends up [Read more]