If You Pursue Growth and a Vision You Will Never Be Unemployed
May 8, 2009
What You Will Learn
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When I was around 10 years old one day my stepfather stayed home from work. He had a bad stomach ache the night before and had felt very sick. I remember he had gotten sick at around 8:00 in the evening and had been ill most of the night. His illness continued into the early afternoon that day and I remembered when I went to school that morning I could hear him moaning from his illness.
I remember the atmosphere in the house was just that we thought he was ill with some sort of serious bug. My mother and he had recently gotten married around a year ago. My little sister had just been born and she was no more than a few months old. He had recently started a business and everything in his life was going pretty well.
When I got home from school that evening my grandmother was in the house.
“They took John to the hospital,” she told me. My mother was not there. They were doing all sorts of testing to figure out exactly what was wrong with him. No one seemed to understand what was wrong. I did not see my mother for a few days because she was going to the hospital very early in the morning and leaving very late at night. Finally, a couple of days later my grandmother sat me down and explained to me that they were going to be operating on my stepfather starting that evening.
Despite the fact that he was only in his late 30s, a terrible cancer had apparently infected numerous parts of his body from his stomach, to his bladder, to his kidneys. The surgeons were going to do what they could in an operation that evening; however, they have him a one in a hundred chance of even surviving on the operating table. In fact, they did not even want to operate because they thought the odds were so slim that he would be able to survive such a serious operation. The cancer had spread throughout his body so completely that they did not believe his system could take having so many organs removed at one time. He wanted the operation, however.
Before the operation my mother apparently cried a great deal and members of his family had gathered beside him. Everyone believed it was the last time they would see him alive. As he was being taken away to surgery he told everyone that he would be just fine and would see them in a few days.
The operation took over 24 hours if I remember correctly. When the operation was done the lead surgeon came out and told my mother that the only reason he had survived was because of his inner strength and that he still had a lot to do. With a young family, a new business, a new wife and goals, my stepfather wanted to live in order to fulfill his objectives in life. He had things to do and things to accomplish.
Remember the periods of your life when you have had the most problems. You may have been depressed. You may have been overeating. You may have been unemployed. You may have been exiting a relationship. You may have been experiencing some sort of personal issues. Usually, if you reflect on this period it is the period when you are least passionate about anything.
You are typically either growing or you are dying. You need to constantly be moving forward towards some sort of goal. Whenever progress in your life stops you typically will feel some sort of discomfort. When you stop searching for a meaning you feel empty and lonely. You must always be in the pursuit of growth and learning.
When I was in seventh grade, I decided that I no longer had a lot of respect for school. I stopped doing homework. In seventh grade I did so poorly that my parents decided I needed to enroll in a private school. In eight grade I flunked out of the private school. In ninth grade I got a 1.7 grade point average for the year. I was in with a bad crowd and headed for a bad life in the future. I remember that my father said to me one day: “If you start trying in school everything will fall into place and it will do so quickly.” I had nothing to lose and listened to him. I made it my goal to get the best grades possible. Within weeks I was the Vice President of my class in the student counsel. I was a varsity athlete. I also ended the year with the best grades in my class for the year. I did this all by having a goal and making the pursuit of growth and learning a priority.
When you visit people who are chronically depressed and unhappy you will generally find that they do not have a goal. When you see people who are chronically unemployed, you will see that they generally do not have a goal. When you find people who are incredibly lonely about this or that you will find in most cases that they do not have a goal.
Everyone has energy and we want to put our energies into solving difficulties. When people do not have difficulties and objectives to solve they will often make them up. Kids who are vandals and make trouble do so in order to have problems to deal with. Couples often get divorced after their kids leave home because they no longer have a common purpose and objective (the kids) to keep them together and moving forward. People need a purpose.
People who come up with one psychosomatic disorder or another typically have little purpose in their lives and their psychosomatic disorders give them problems to deal with. In fact, a lack of purpose for some people may even manifest in their body as a disease. Have you ever noticed how certain people are always getting sick? Many might argue that this is the body’s way of giving us something to deal with.
When we solve the difficulties that we have we are in much better shape. Since we are designed for growth, we must make sure that growth is always fueled. Without fueling growth, we have no purpose and nothing do deal with.
My wife and I used to take exotic vacations to the middle of nowhere. In fact, we would go far, far away to places where there was not even any Internet. Several years ago I remember we took a vacation to a small island in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. It took us over 24 hours of commercial flights and finally a 90 minute float plane journey to finally reach our destination. We spent two weeks or so on a small island with literally nothing to do. Since I could not work every single day I became quite frustrated. After around four or five days of this my wife started pointing out to me that she believed I was intentionally creating fights out of nothing at all to keep myself occupied. Since there were no problems at work I decided to create some with my wife. My wife pointed out to me that we really did not have any problems with each other after a couple of stupid and drawn out arguments about things as banal as her leaving the cap off the toothpaste. I very quickly realized that I had nothing to fight with my wife about so I decided to fight with myself. I became depressed and decided that I had a problem. Then I realized this was crazy. I made sure that my office started faxing me a daily update of what was going on. Then I felt better. This gave me a sense of purpose again. I felt fantastic when I finally got back to the United States and was working again.
When you look at the happiest and most successful people out there you will generally discover that they have an amazing ability to keep themselves extremely busy with some sense of purpose. I remember reading one of Donald Trump’s books and how he talked about how he never, every takes a vacation. He gets a charge out of the sense of purpose in his life. This is what I have seen time and time again among the most accomplished and happy people out there: They have an incredible sense of purpose. We get passion in our lives from growth.
Since we are designed for growth, we need to make sure that out growth is fueled always.
Proverbs 29:18 says: “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.” Without vision and purpose, people often do not focus and they do not reach their goals. The older and more common translation of this quote states that, “Without vision, the people perish.” I am sure you have seen this as well. Without vision people simply lose vitality and what makes them live and be alive.
Civilizations typically are conquered and die when their leaders fail to inspire a vision among the people. Conquest by an enemy with a vision is typically the last phase for a dying civilization. In your career and life, you too will be conquered if you do not have a vision. If you do not have a vision for who you will become and what you will achieve in your life, what will happen is that you will simply be forced into someone else’s vision. If you blindly go to work as a cashier at a Walmart, for example, you may be in service of a vision of the Founder of WalMart, Sam Walton, who long ago imagined a chain of stores like WalMart. You will also be in service of the manager of the store and others dependent upon your work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working as a cashier in a WalMart; however, there is something gravely wrong with this if you are not in the service of your own vision when you are doing this.
Have you seen the sort of enthusiasm that overcomes people when they have a vision? When people want to achieve something and have vision their lives change. If you do not have any vision and you do not have a passion for your vision then you are going to have the sorts of problems in your life that you do not want.
Many people in the world believe that if they get rich and make a lot of money then all of their problems will be solved. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, the history of lottery winners often proves the opposite. Many lottery winners report experiencing more problems after winning the lottery than they had before doing so. The reason is because they may have experienced success in winning money but they do not know anything whatsoever about being fulfilled. Fulfillment requires the satisfaction of becoming someone. For a healthy life we need to feel fulfilled.
One of the biggest problems that we have in life is the belief deep down that we should not have problems. The only people who do not have problems are the people who are in cemeteries. The rest of the world has problems. Regardless of the station in life they are in, most people in the world have lots and lots of problems. To not expect problems is stupid. Some problems are just more serious than other problems.
The secret is that you need to experience problems as part of a vision and as part of your growth. When you learn this you will almost always experience happiness. Regardless of what happens to you in the world or if you are laid off by your employer, or lose a job, when you are not pursuing growth you are unemployed. If you are always pursuing growth, then regardless of whether you lose a job, you are always going to be employed. When you are unemployed (i.e., with no vision) you will create problems for yourself to give yourself something to do in order to be occupied. You must always be in the pursuit of growth and learning.
My Lesson From the Missionaries
January 7, 2009
What You Will Learn
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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.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.