One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice. 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 feel secure again. We believe 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 were terminated from jobs carry with them throughout their careers. The goal for all of us is to be in positions where we are secure, and to keep that security. Recently, I saw the movie American Beauty again. When I first saw the movie I was younger; I didn’t really understand the importance of what was going on, and how it applies to everyone in the working world. In the movie, they fired the protagonist from his job. In response to this, he decides he wants to simplify his life, and he takes a position in a fast-food restaurant—which is far beneath the sort of job they had fired him from. He takes this job; It led the viewer to believe, because he wants to go back to a simpler, happier time in his life, and have again that feeling of empowerment and security from his youth. His goal is to find that stability in a world that had grown dark and uncertain around him.

Stability and certainty are so important to many of us we often settle for far less than we could have simply because we want that security. We settle for worse jobs than we could get; we settle for less pay than we could earn. Simply stated, we settle because our cost benefit analysis of the world tells us security is more important than pay, job satisfaction, or status.

Several weeks ago, I wandered into an impossibly expensive bed store in Beverly Hills with my wife (where some beds cost as much as $50,000) and when I asked why someone would spend so much on a bed; the salesperson told me we spend one third of our lives there. However, we spend far over one third of our lives at work–or thinking about it. If we do not work, we cannot even afford a bed! Therefore, work is one of the most important aspects of our existence.

When you add up everything we do in our lives, whether it is taking part in a church or synagogue, spending time with friends or family, or engaging in various hobbies-you quickly discover that most of our time was spent working. Work may be the predominant activity in our lives, whether we want to admit it, and if we dislike our work, we are probably not enjoying life.

Have you ever spent time with people who hate their jobs? This is practically all they talk about. Not liking their jobs makes people depressed or angry. Being around people who hate their jobs is a miserable experience. I remember growing up in Detroit, where many of my friends’ parents would come home from jobs they hated. They would walk straight to the liquor cabinet, pour a drink, and, after 20 minutes, begin complaining to their spouses about how much they hated work, or about some slight they received from their boss that day. Several hours later, a loud argument might even break out between the parents. This process would be repeated day after day. Even when I was seven or eight, watching this process taught me that not liking one’s job was a tremendous problem.

Sometimes it takes a child’s mind to see what is really going on in the world. I remember writing reports about Russia when I was around seven or eight. The major conflict in the world that existed until the 1990s was the threat of communist Russia against the United States. We were afraid of communism, but, in reality, communism is nothing more than an economic system wherein people are given jobs and told exactly what to do. The state pays them less but, in exchange, they receive security. In the United States, they built capitalism on a lack of security. You have your choice of jobs, but it is up to you to find security within the capitalist system. They have built entire civilizations on the quest for security.

In the United States, a giant strike was going on in late 2008 between the machinist union at Boeing and the company. The company was demanding the right to outsource certain work, and the workers were demanding security in their jobs. This fight cost the company $100 million a day. Similar conflicts between unions and automobile companies were having far-reaching implications for the American auto industry.

The fight for security is all around us.

When a man loses his job, you will usually find him in a bad mental state. Sometimes the man will stop shaving. He may look confused. He will fight with his wife more and snap at people around him. The stress of not having a job, or feeling a lack of purpose, can quickly bring on emotional problems. When people are having emotional problems, a psychologist or doctor may prescribe drugs or treatment, maybe wanting to talk about the person’s parents, for example. Most often, a better solution would be to look at how the person’s job is going-or how their lack of a job is affecting them. Fix a person’s career and most other things often quickly fall into place.

If security is so important, how does one go about finding it in a job? People get college educations, professional degrees, and do everything within their power to make themselves attractive to employers so they will have security. People rehearse interviewing so they can get a job. People attempt to go into industries or work in sectors with presumed security, whether they are in government, real estate, medicine, or law. Every industry out there has been presumed to be secure at one time or another. However, all of them involve some level of instability.

After studying the employment market for some time, I believe there are several ways to look for security. There is a push and pull between finding security and making a great deal of money. The question is, what do you want and how much are you willing to risk? Since I am a former attorney, I will draw from my experience to give you some career advice and a sign of how the employment process works in the legal industry.

When attorneys graduate from law school, they typically try their hardest to get the highest-paying jobs they can. The highest-paying jobs are with large law firms, and they typically pay around $160,000 a year. Because of the massive amount of money these attorneys make, we expect them to work extremely hard; they are also quickly let go if they are not billing as expected or if there are issues with their work. These jobs rarely have a lot of long-term security, and if junior attorneys believe they may lose their jobs, they will usually try to find another job at another high-paying firm. They will probably keep doing this until they either become a partner at a high-paying firm, or they end up changing careers.

Once attorneys get a few years of experience at a high-paying law firm, they want to leave the law firm to work for a corporation. Jobs with corporations are very much in demand. In most cases, corporate jobs pay at least 50 percent less than jobs at law firms. The reason attorneys want to work for corporations, though, is because of the security factor. Security appeals to some attorneys far more than money (jobs with corporations typically also require less work).

Most (over 95 percent) attorneys do not end up with jobs in the highest-paying law firms. These attorneys rarely change jobs as often, and in my experience, have a lot more long-term security. As an example, almost all the attorneys I know who started practicing law with large firms that paid large salaries are no longer practicing law ten years later. The attorneys I know who went to small law firms or took positions with the government are still practicing law. This phenomenon bears some examination, and I think there are reasons behind it.

I believe that the attorneys who went to large firms saw so many people lose their jobs (and may have lost their own jobs) that they simply became disillusioned with practicing law because they saw no security in it. Conversely, smaller firms, which typically pay less, do not let people go as aggressively; the attorneys working their experience far more security within the practice of law and, therefore, continue their legal careers.

The higher paid or more competitive the job you take, the more insecurity that job will involve. Think about investment banks letting go of thousands of people. You will rarely find an investment banker in his mid-30s, even who has been with the same firm his entire career.

I also want to note that the more complex the organization you are in is, the less security you will have in your job. For example, giant companies like Yahoo! might suddenly decide to let go of 10 percent of their staff to save money. A larger organization is, in many respects, more impersonal and, due to its complexity, there are forces involved that are simply beyond the control of the people working there.

A few months ago, I went to the dentist, and as I started speaking with the dentist and his staff of four, they told me they had all been working together for over 20 years! I thought about how rare this is in today’s society, where people move around so frequently between jobs. In considering this, however, I quickly realized the reason. A dental office is not a complex institution. If it is set up in the right area (an economically stable one) and the dentist is respectable (this dentist was also a professor of dentistry at USC), the operation should continue going indefinitely. Here, the lack of complexity in the dentist’s operation, and the presumed stability of the business, made it a secure work environment. Working in a small dental office is a secure job, it would seem, and not much different from the job that the protagonist in American Beauty found working in a fast-food restaurant.

There is one last point I want to make that is crucial and involves the people or person you will work for. I am sure you have heard stories of the crazy boss in a company who randomly lets people go, or who is altogether unbalanced. If you make your choice of employer based on one thing alone, make sure you are working for a stable person. You can detect a stable boss by many factors, such as the time certain employees have worked directly for him or her. Being around stable people is very important in your work environment, and so is feeling comfortable around the people you work with. You need to feel comfortable or you will have reason to doubt your security.

Security in a job is one of the more fundamental issues in all societies and is a basis for conflict between nations and people. Realize that you need to seek security and find it at all costs. This is the most important aspect of any job.

The post Your Ultimate Goal: How You Can Find Job Security appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

Several years ago our company was operating in downtown Los Angeles. At less than a year old, the company was very small at the time; however, the people I was working with were nothing short of extraordinary:

• I had one computer programmer who had gone to Columbia Law School and had come to work with me after deciding that he did not want to practice law.
• I had a girl who had graduated at the top of her class at Boston University Law School and decided that she did not want to practice law.
• I had another guy who had gotten a perfect score on his LSATs and a perfect grade point average. He was working for me a few years before deciding which law school to attend. They all ended up offering him scholarships.
• I had a guy who was extremely intelligent and hardworking, who had gone to law school with his wife, and ultimately decided against working in a law firm. He had followed his wife out to Los Angeles while she took a job practicing law.

One guy might come in at 5:00 am and work until 4:00 pm and then work from home later in the evening. Another guy might come in at 11:00 am and then work until 1:00 am. People often worked on weekends because they liked being together. Everyone seemed to keep unusual hours, working very hard. They were always applying themselves fully and I never needed to worry about them. We offered vacation time but people hardly ever took the time off. If someone wanted to go away for a week or so they would just announce they were going on their vacation and no one was too concerned. I knew the sort of people I was working with would never abuse any privileges.

What I remember most about this group of people was that everyone had done extraordinarily well in college, getting almost all A’s. I have noticed throughout the years that the very best employees are often those who did incredibly well in college. The reason for this, I think, is that the best college students are always self-motivated, disciplined individuals who enjoy their work. You have to find a way to enjoy what you are doing in order to do well at it.

To get good grades in college you generally need to work hard and set up routines, rituals, and so forth to make sure you study at the right times. In examining the hundreds of employees I have worked with throughout the years, with very few exceptions, the longest lasting and best performing people were always those who had performed very well in college.

In contrast, I have known numerous people who, when they grew up, were forced to follow massive amounts of procedures and rules by their parents. They were told when to study, when to go to sleep, and more. Many of these kids ended up getting into great colleges because of their grades, but when they got there and did not have the structure, they fell on their ass. I saw this happen countless times. It is important that our rituals and sense of responsibility is internal, and something we learn to do naturally–not something we only do when it is imposed on us by people on the outside.

This “core group” of four people performed incredibly well for my company and our revenues very quickly grew. Within less than a year of hiring this group, we had moved locations together. After hiring numerous new employees, we took over the largest office in our building at the time. Then the company underwent a huge hiring spree; every single day of the week I found myself interviewing various people for one job or another. The process of massive and rapid hiring occurred constantly for the next several years.

What was so remarkable about this group of people was that they were entirely self-motivated and self-managing. They instinctively knew what needed to be done and they made it all happen. They were excited about and enjoyed their work, which was more akin to play for them. Their efforts helped build our companies to what they are today.  Indeed knowing these people gave me a tremendous amount of respect for the self-managing person, who knows what needs to be done and how to do it. This type of person is rare–and is the sort of person you need to be. The more self-managing you are, the better you will ultimately do at everything you undertake, the more employers will want to hold on to you, and the better future you will create for yourself.

I met with a man yesterday who has been partaking in transcendental meditation every day for the past 30 years. He told me that for him it is just like getting up and brushing his teeth or taking a shower. He simply would not be able to get up in the morning without having his daily meditation. Many people have their special routines, which they follow each day. They eat lunch at a certain time, get up at a certain time, go to sleep at a certain time, walk the dog at a certain time, etc. We integrate all sorts of rituals and responsibilities into our daily lives. We need to do the same with our job and work life. We need more responsibilities and rituals. We should not have to rely on others telling us what to do. A grown up does not need to be told when to eat, when to take a shower, and so forth. So it should be at the workplace. There is nothing more important than being self-managing.

Within a few years, our company had bought its own building and then another, and then another. The growth just kept continuing. Revenues increased and things seemed to be going very well.

However, I remember just before we moved to the first building we had purchased, that many of our key employees began quitting. Very smart people started dropping off, people who had been core employees, who had greatly assisted in growing many of our businesses. As the company grew, I began noticing that certain new people were not as self-motivated as the ones we had hired previously. My hiring standards had dropped somewhat, and many new people I brought in were just not of the same caliber to which I had become accustomed. I was not the only one in charge of hiring anymore, either. In some cases people were apparently hired more based on looks than skills. Others were hired because they knew someone working in the company. The atmosphere of the company began to change rapidly. I became increasingly frustrated because as the company was branching out, it became necessary for me to create all sorts of new procedures, handbooks, and so forth to control many of the new people. I absolutely hated this. I am somewhat of a “creative type” and cannot imagine spending my time trying to control people through various procedures and protocols.

Here are some of the employee issues I faced while the company expanded:

• People would begin disappearing for long periods of time during the day.
• Some employees would call in sick every few days.
• Other people would do slipshod work and have to be reprimanded.
• Various employees would circulate memos claiming that labor laws were being violated because certain employees were working too hard.
• People began requesting “reasonable accommodations” for various psychological ailments with which they had somehow been diagnosed.
• People started stealing from the company and getting caught red handed.

A whole host of other problems developed, far too numerous to delineate here. In response to all these problems the company started cracking down, establishing new bureaucracy and rules.

• I began hiring anal retentive people to be human resources administrators, and to create various rules that people would need to follow.
• We came up with employee manuals.
• We began circulating memos with rules.
• We began having various meetings to discuss employee procedures.

The self-motivated employees hated all of these rules because they were working hard to begin with. For example, if a self-motivated employee got “written up” for getting into work at 12:00 noon when they had worked until 3:00am, they were pissed. I hired an in-house lawyer to draft contracts for the new employees to sign, which demanded arbitration instead of allowing them to sue us if they believed something had gone wrong. The in-house lawyer stayed busy fielding calls and having meetings with people who were aggrieved in one way or another with all these rules and procedures. The lawyer also became responsible for firing people who were not following the rules, and spoke with the human resources manager on a daily basis about problem employees, having closed door meetings, and more.

All of the rules and bureaucratic procedures the company had created were made specifically to compensate for the inadequacies of the weak hires–people the company would not have even hired at all in the past. I noticed that while the star performers could tolerate working with weaker performers (after all, they had probably been doing this their entire lives), they absolutely could not tolerate being governed by all sorts of rules and bureaucratic procedures. For example, we passed one rule that said people could not go barefoot in the office. This made a brilliant guy from Stanford who did great work for us almost quit on the spot. We passed another rule about dress codes (shirt and pants required in the office–no shorts allowed) that made another few people quit.

As the best people left and more and more people were hired to replace them, the need for more and more bureaucracy kept developing, and I found myself passing more and more rules in order to insure that the new people were actually working. What ended up happening, of course, was that the company changed over time. While the culture of the workplace was still entrepreneurial, rules and regulations began to dominate. One time we had an incident where one of our offices tried to unionize. An increasing amount of managerial effort went into babysitting and keeping files and reports on the staff, as opposed to starting new projects and getting work done. Much of my experience running the company turned into a watchdog position, wherein I constantly had to insure that people actually did their jobs.

I also started to notice another alarming trend with numerous employees:

• People would come into work and clock in and then disappear. They would do this for days at a time and do no work whatsoever.
• Others would manufacture fake on-the-job injuries and sue the company for damages.
• Still other people would come in late repeatedly and after a series of 10 or 12 warnings in the space of few months they would be fired. Then they would then bring lawsuits against the company claiming they were fired because they were old, young, whatever.

It was always the people who needed to be managed who caused the most problems. You would not believe how many people out there make a game out of creating fictitious problems.

The best people in every job I have ever had and in every company I have ever supervised are self-managing and responsible individuals. Also, the more self-managing people are there working for an organization, the stronger the organization generally is. I cannot overstate the importance of being able to self-manage; this is an absolutely essential quality to possess if you wish to achieve success in whatever you do. Instead of creating problems in the workplace, you should seek out responsibilities, and ritualize your work routine. These responsibilities will drive you forward in your daily work, in your career, and in your life.

The post Unlock Your True Potential: The Power of Self-Management appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

Another friend of mine who grew up with us, and also resided in Los Angeles, suggested that he and I rent a limousine and take our visiting friend around town to several clubs. I called a limousine company one Friday afternoon and rented a giant limousine with a hot tub for around $1,000.

“We’re going to have a great night!” I told my friend. “We’ve rented a limousine and planned a huge evening in your honor!”

At around 8:00 p.m. the giant limousine pulled up in front of my house. I was there with my girlfriend,  excited about the big night that lay ahead. The plan was to pick my friend up at a restaurant dinner in Beverly Hills where he was having dinner and then go out. I tried calling him several times but he did not pick up. I was getting very annoyed because there was a giant limo in front of my house, I had already paid the limousine company and I had no idea where we were going.

Eventually, he called me around 9:00 p.m. and said:

“I’m at a dinner with my girlfriend and her family and I’m going to go back with her family to their house. I need to get to know her family better.”

Normally, this sort of thing would not have bothered me. Here, however, I had rented a non-refundable limousine. I ended up having a decent evening with the car and drove around Los Angeles with my friend and girlfriend picking up various people. The evening ended up being a lot of fun despite what had transpired earlier.

On Monday morning, the friend I was supposed to take out emailed me instructions related to opening bank accounts with his brokerage firm, as he was a stockbroker. I had never done substantial business with him and he was seeking to have me transfer all my banking relationships to him. I thought this was incredibly rude and discourteous.

I am not sure exactly how I responded. What I do remember is that I was quite insulted about him blowing us off over the weekend. In addition, I was somewhat put off by the request that I invest money with him after what had happened. Normally, when someone wants you to invest money with him they do not simply email you forms requesting that you open accounts without a suitable introduction.

Some sort of argument ensued and I am not sure exactly what occurred.  What I do remember from the exchange was what my friend that I had hosted the party with responded after one particularly heated email exchange:

“Everyone just wanted to be liked and loved. Let’s just agree we all like each other and move on.”

For some reason this comment really stuck with me and I remember reflecting on it a great deal throughout the years. There was a great deal of truth to this statement because what I was upset about was having been stood up—of not feeling important enough to have had my friend show up for his own party. Then, I felt further insulted when he emailed me forms seeking to have me invest money with him.

In truth, there was no reason for me to have been upset about any of this. His family-related obligations simply became more important than seeing someone he was not really very good friends with anyway. The problem, I realized, was me.  For whatever reason, my ego was shallow enough that I allowed something that was relatively insignificant to upset me.

A few days later a check arrived in the mail for his share of the limousine ride. He sent $300 since he felt that this represented 1/3 of the cost split between three friends. I returned his check and never heard from him again. It was a meaningless end to a relationship with someone I had known for over 20 years. Only now do I realize that it was largely my own sense of rejection that caused this relationship to end as it did. As corny as it sounds, deep down this sort of thing comes down to a desire we all have to feel loved.

• How many relationships have you ended for stupid reasons related to your own sense of rejection and insecurity—a need to feel loved?
• How many jobs have you ended for stupid reasons related to your own sense of rejection and insecurity—a need to feel loved?
• How would your life be different if you did not feel a sense of insecurity—a need to feel loved?

Most species are not as dependent upon their parents for survival as a human is when it is born.  A turtle crawls out of an egg and never knows its parents. A frog is born as a tadpole and expected to survive on its own. Even most mammals spend only a few months with their mothers and then are completely alone.

Humans, however, are much different than other animals. Instead of spending a few months or years dependent upon our parents, we spend one to two decades (or longer).  When we are born, our survival is 100% dependent upon someone putting our needs ahead of their own-–for an extended period of time. If a baby or young child is not given love and taken care of, it will die very quickly.  Receiving care and love from others is among the most important components of our existence from the moment we are born. Without love a child dies.

As a child grows up and starts to walk, talk and so forth, it is still dependent upon the love of its parents. A child who is ignored, disliked and not taken care of by its parents will very soon experience all sorts of emotional, mental, physical and other problems. A child learns very early on what sort of behaviors will earn it the love of its parents and what sorts of behavior will be met with disapproval and punishment. Disapproval means the threat of love being withdrawn.

Love can be withdrawn by parents in many ways:

• A parent can simply leave. This is something that always inflicts massive damage on a child and it lasts a lifetime. This happened to Steve Jobs. Jobs’ mother put him up for adoption when he was a baby and Jobs never even knew his father.  When Jobs was older he learned who his father was. His father tried to get in contact with him. Jobs was so furious at his father for not being there he refused to speak with him.  Jobs was damaged by his father’s love being withdrawn despite the fact that he never knew him.
• A parent can divorce another parent, cheat on another parent and so forth. I do not know how many people I have known who stopped speaking to a parent because one parent left the other parent. Children feel that love has been withdrawn even when it is not due to them. If one parent hurts the other, the child can take this personally as rejection.
• A parent can ignore a child. A parent who ignores a child makes the child feel as if they are insignificant and not lovable. A child who feels ignored may act out in negative ways, or try hard to achieve in positive ways to attract a parent’s attention.

Most of us have a deep, ingrained need to be loved by our parents and caregivers.  Most children have an almost natural predilection to seek out the approval of their parents and others.  Without that love, children act in all sorts of ways—some positive and others negative.

The success of humans as a species is largely the result of our ability to function in groups.  Functioning in groups requires that group members be approved of by others. People have this deep, instinctual need for love and to be connected with others. I believe this is due to the unique nature of how we must adapt to survive as children and a species. In our lives, a great deal of what occurs goes back to that fundamental issue of how we felt loved as children—either positively or negatively influencing us.

As children grow older, the love they receive from their parents and the world starts to come with conditions. As babies they could do anything they wanted and receive love.  As children grow, the love and approval they receive from their parents becomes conditional upon doing certain things. If children do not meet these expectations, they are spanked, grounded, sent to their rooms and so forth.

All of the conditioning we receive as we grow sends us an ultimate message: If we do not act, behave, or achieve a certain way we will not receive love. On a deep level, every person out there has the sense that if they do not receive the love of others they will not survive.

The moment that we start to feel like we are not being loved by others we react very negatively.  Because love is so important to people, most people will react in negative ways if they are afraid of losing love. For example, if someone is in a relationship and they feel like the other person is going to break up with them they may try and hurt the other person first by ending the relationship, or do something else to sabotage the relationship.

The moment we start feeling we are going to lose love, the fear that we are going to “die” on an emotional level occurs. A child who does not receive love will, of course, die if the lack of love is severe enough. Those feeling that they are going to lose love are greatly affected:

• Some people get depressed.
• Other people get angry with the world and lash out at it.
• Some people become criminals.
• Other people kill people.
• Others start using drugs.
• Other people cut and mutilate themselves.
• Some people start working harder.
• Some people engage in risky sexual behavior.
• Other people start overeating.

Whatever it is, if people feel like they are not getting love, or losing love, they react in some way.  If someone does not get love from society, parents and others, he or she becomes damaged.  Most emotionally damaged people suffer from the belief that love has been withdrawn by someone, or some group of people. People who have trouble in their careers generally have issues getting the approval of others—and approval, of course, is a form of love.

The majority of the most successful people I have ever met were motivated seeking approval (i.e., love) from their parents. For example, many successful movie stars have parents who never made it in the industry, but wanted to. Their children had the fierce drive and determination that enabled them to succeed, in many cases because they wanted to prove something to their parents and earn more love. The majority of the most successful businesspeople and others I have known were motivated by seeking the approval of parents and others, even if it was on an unexpressed level.

Successful politicians, doctors, lawyers and leaders of industry are often deep down seeking approval and love. The love people are seeking may not even have to do with parents: People may just want to feel loved by others in general, or they may be seeking the approval of a former teacher, an old friend or lover, or someone who withheld approval and love from them in the past. Many people believe that if they achieve enough, do enough, or make enough money that they will be loved. The basis for how many people think, act and behave is rooted in their need for love and approval.

One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is “how much of what you do is related to seeking love?”  How much does the need for love impact your life and your day-to-day existence?

When I was in graduate school, my dad took my girlfriend and I to Paris for a 72-hour frequent flyer miles sponsored vacation. It was a very nice gesture for him to do this and something he did not have to do. When we arrived in Paris late in the evening, my father told us to meet him in the lobby in the morning at 8:00 a.m. to start a marathon day of sightseeing and touring.  Unfortunately, my girlfriend and I were so completely exhausted and jet lagged that we did not even hear our alarm go off in the morning.  Instead, we continued sleeping and did not end up getting up until after 10:00 a.m.

We called my father and could not find him.  Eventually, early in the afternoon, we found him in the lobby. He had been touring the city all day. He was extremely angry and upset with us. He said something to the effect that we were on our own the rest of the trip and ended up storming off.

This was an upsetting event. My girlfriend started crying and was extremely upset. She wanted to go home and felt that my father was being horrible.  She broke up with me because she said she could never be in a family where someone would suddenly lash out like that. My father felt like we were horrible for sleeping in.

At its heart, what was going on was about love. My father felt “unloved” and disrespected by us sleeping in—just as I had felt unloved and disrespected years later when my friend did not show up to the party I had thrown him. My girlfriend (whom I had discussed marriage with), felt unloved by my father and was worried about being loved in the long-term by her family.  Everything in this conflict came back to love.

There are so many people out there who jump between jobs. At the heart of many of these moves from job to job is that the person does not feel appreciated (i.e., loved) by their employers. If someone starts to feel insecure with an employer—and as if the employer does not care about them—they start feeling tremendously insecure and start looking for new work.  In fact, so much that occurs in the workplace revolves around people’s deep-seated need to feel appreciated and loved by others.

It is generally easy to make someone quit a job. All you need to do is subtly start ignoring the person, not smiling at him or her, and so forth. These sorts of gestures rapidly start to make the person on the receiving end feel insecure, unwanted and unloved. I have seen this sort of thing occur more times than I can count. Feeling appreciated, loved and wanted—and making another feel appreciated, loved and wanted—is the heart of all employer and employee relationships.

In addition, people irrationally staying in jobs despite being treated poorly often occurs due to the need people have for the approval of their supervisors and others. People need to feel appreciated by others and employers are able to cater to this dynamic to get the results they want out of us.

Some people stay in certain geographic locations to be close to family members who they rely upon for love. People want to be near those whom they love and who give them love back.

People base their careers and lives around work schedules and doing certain types of jobs that please others. It may be working a certain type of job that gives them flexibility, or doing a certain type of job that requires them to earn a certain amount of income. At its nature much of this comes back to love.

At its heart, it is important to understand that this need for love and approval is something that is often used against you in your career. There is nothing wrong with needing to feel loved and cared about; nevertheless, this need is often a driving force behind much of what we do in our careers. We seek approval and want to be needed.

There is nothing wrong with the need we have to feel loved. Nevertheless, it often creates massive turmoil in our careers and actually serves to hold us back instead of benefit us. For example, supervisors and others can recognize our need for approval and use this against us.  We may make certain decisions in what we do in our lives and career based on this need when, in fact, we could become much more if we were not so dependent on the need to be loved.

In every decision you make in your career, it is important to be aware of this deep seated need you have to be loved, approved of and cared about. You need to step back from your actions and ask yourself how the things you do come back to this need. Everyone is motivated at some level by the need to be loved and a fear of having love taken away from us.

You have to make this need to feel loved, that everyone has, work for you and not against you.

The post How the Need for Approval Can Quietly Derail an Attorney Career appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

By the time most people are around 25 years old, it seems the person they are going to be, their level of happiness, and their level of predictable success has been pretty well set. It is as if the person has been calcified to some extent and will go on living the life you would expect of them. Even by the age of 18 or so, most people are already calcified. This calcification does not necessarily mean that the person will never change–but, for the most part, it means that the person will be pretty set in his or her ways. The sorts of achievement the person aspires to, the risks the person takes with regard to careers, what the person expects out of relationships, what the person gives to others, how hard the person is willing to work and more, are all pretty much set. If you were to examine someone at the age of 25 and do an in-depth profile, my guess is that you would get a pretty clear picture of what the person’s life would look like twenty years or so from now.

My twentieth high school reunion happened recently. Unfortunately, I did not attend because I did not learn about it until a few days before its occurrence; I live in California, and the school is in Michigan. In hearing from an old buddy about what my high school classmates were up to, there were very few surprises at all. In fact, I cannot think of a single surprise in terms of the level of success or chosen life path of any of my old classmates. I had not known many of these people since I was around 18, but they all pretty much ended up like I would have expected back in high school. The biggest shock to me is that certain people did not amount to as much as I had expected: it was never the case that a person amounted to more than I expected.

Have you ever questioned why certain people did not amount to more? To me, this question raises numerous other questions. What is it that holds back someone of tremendous potential and achievement from reaching all that they are truly capable of? What is it that kicks in and calcifies a person’s potential, or lack thereof?

I am sure there are some people you know who seem to have problems all of the time: Things go wrong for the person wherever they go. They get in auto accidents; they accidentally break things; they have all sorts of health problems; they make stupid mistakes and get fired from jobs; people around them have all sorts of issues as well. I have known many people like this.

• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always getting sick?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always having accidents?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always getting in trouble?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always in crisis?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always having financial problems?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always losing their jobs?
• Have you ever known someone whose friends and acquaintances are always unhappy?

I have, and I do not think there are a lot of coincidences when it comes to people and the misfortunes that plague their lives. There are, quite simply, people who will generally make those around them unhappy and create problems.

While it seems to be a paranoid sort of assertion, I firmly believe that whether or not the people around us are validating or invalidating us is a large cause of our success or failure in life. This also goes for organizations. If you are in a good or bad organization, this can have a tremendous influence over what happens to you. One of my greatest sources of pride is the number of positive stories I could tell you about my former employees. Good things have happened to many of them in their careers after being with me for some time. The fact that good things happen to people associated with a given organization or person reflects well on that organization or person. Conversely, I know of law firms in which nothing much ever happens for the people who leave, and, in most cases, they experience one failure after another following their departure. Much of this has to do, I think, with the level of support the people may have received in their previous positions and the messages they have carried forth into their lives by virtue of this association.

• Did they learn to believe in what is possible?
• Did they feel validated?
• Did they develop confidence?
• Were they able to learn and incorporate a message about their own validity in the world?

If you are spending time with a person who is invalidating your efforts and your life, the odds are you will be negatively affected. Similarly, if you are around someone who is constantly validating you and giving you approval, you may benefit tremendously through your association with this person. The same thing goes for the organizations that we are part of. There are people out there who tend to better the mood, health, and general well-being of those around them, and there are those who do not. I am going to list a few examples of this; some of them may be upsetting and may even relate to you personally, but nonetheless they merit review.

I have known of many people throughout the years who were closely connected with someone, whether it be a parent, mate, or someone else. The person they were connected with had a huge fear of the person leaving them, and therefore their personal interest was in keeping the person down, making sure that the person did not improve, or change, to such an extent that they could ever leave them. A parent who does not want his or her child to go away from home may feign all sorts of illnesses to keep the child around and may also discourage any of the child’s efforts at self-improvement. For example, if the child gets into an excellent out-of-state college, the parent may encourage the child to stay home and go to a local community college, for various reasons, instead of finding a way to make the child’s upward mobility to a better school a reality. A parent who has the need to feel superior to his or her child may also keep the child down in subtle ways.

In personal relationships, a man or woman may discourage a mate from trying to get a better job, looking better, and so forth, for fear that this might lead to separation and abandonment. This person might relay negative feedback about his or her partner’s accomplishments but hold back positive feedback or information that is likely to be helpful.

The objective of such people is to keep other people down. People can hold you back by direct means, and they can also do so through indirect means. For example, a friend or significant other who does not compliment or notice the positive things that you do, or who always finds fault in the positive things that you do, can have a very traumatic effect on you in the long run. Making you self-conscious of your faults and always pointing these out can also be a seriously negative influence. Relating about nothing other than negativity, impossibility, and so forth can also have a very negative effect on you. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it is probably time to evaluate your relationships.

In most sports, there is something called the home team advantage, which means that when a team is playing at home, it tends to perform much better than when they play away. When a team is at home, it is encouraged and cheered on by people, and is supported by the spectators, whereas visiting teams are often booed. Consider this explanation from Wikipedia:

In most team sports where the concept of home and away stadiums is found, the home team is considered to have a significant advantage over the visitors. Due to this, many important games (such as playoff or elimination matches) in many sports have special rules for determining what match is played where. In association football, matches with two legs, one played in each team’s “home,” are common; it is also common to hold important games at a neutral site. In many team sports in North America (including baseball, basketball, and ice hockey), playoff series are often held, with a nearly equal number of games at each team’s site; as it is usually beneficial to have an odd number of matches in a series (to prevent ties), the final home game is often awarded to the team that had the most success over the regular season. In some sports, this tends to be a huge ace in the hole, such as basketball, where historically the home team in deciding games has won 78 of 97 games, up until the second round of the 2007 NBA Playoffs.

Home field advantage is especially pronounced in NCAA Division I American football, where teams like LSU, USC, Ohio State, Penn State, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and many others win consistently at home. Many college football stadiums also have nicknames that represent the loudness of the stadium. Autzen Stadium, home of the Oregon Ducks, has been nicknamed the “Autzen Zoo” because of how loud it gets, and Kyle Field, the home of the Texas A&M Aggies has been nicknamed the “12th Man” because of the loudness there. That can be attributed to the fact that many of the largest football stadiums in America are college stadiums, such as Michigan Stadium, which seats 107,501, about 35,000 more than most NFL stadiums. However, teams that are nearby may have less of a home field advantage. Such examples may be UCLA-USC or Cal-Stanford, where the visiting team’s fans often equal or exceed the home crowd and the only effect the visiting team has is they have to wear their road uniforms and play on a nearby field. Sometimes during bowl season, a team will happen to play a bowl game in their home stadium and sometimes be designated as the visiting team in their own home stadium, and thus, receives the home field advantage despite not being the home team. On the high school level, where schools often share stadiums, when the co-tenants play each other, one school manages to pick up a not so rare, but advantageous road game in their home stadium. On the professional level, several teams either get to play road games in their home stadiums or play a road game nearby. When the Jets and the Giants of the NFL meet, whoever the visiting team is gets an extra game at their home stadium. A similar situation occurs when the Lakers and Clippers of the NBA play each other. Other series where teams get to stay close to home on the road include: (NFL) Raiders-49ers, Ravens-Redskins (MLB) A’s-Giants, Dodgers-Angels, Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, Cubs-Brewers, Orioles-Nationals (NHL) Islanders-Rangers-Devils, Ducks-Kings, Oilers-Flames, Senators-Maple Leafs, Canadians-Senators, and in the NBA, Knicks-Nets, Kings-Warriors and Lakers-Clippers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_advantage

The home team advantage is one of the most important concepts in sports and it is a proven factor in how well teams do. If this concept applies to teams, how do you think it can apply to everyday life? There are people who support us, validate us, and make us feel good, and this helps us do well more often than not. There are also people around us who fail to support us, and this hurts us. When a team away from home scores a goal, people boo or do not make the team feel validated for its efforts. When the team away from home does something wrong, people may cheer. The psychological message transmitted is that people only approve of the team away from home when they are doing poorly.

Many people associate with people and groups of people who treat them like they are not the home team; others associate with people who treat them like they are the home team. Your success in your career and in your life will in large part be determined by whether you are living, working, and associating with a “home team” crowd or an “away team” crowd.

When I was in high school geometry class, after the first exam, our teacher drew a giant circle on the blackboard, representing the shape of a horse-racing track. He then put little dots in several places along the track and said something that I will never forget:

“This is where you all started in the race, but everyone’s position can change. Some of you will pass one another at some point, and the person who is in first right now may not keep running and may end up in last place. Conversely, the person who is in last may keep running, training, and trying to do better and may end up in first place. You need to realize that the race for the best grade will take all semester, and just because you are one place right now, this does not mean it is where you will end up.”

This is a really simple example and the teacher was talking only about our geometry class at the time; however, it is a metaphor that stands true for our lives. People begin the race in a certain place, and then some people end up doing much better than others, and this is just how it works. The race keeps going and just because someone starts the race in first place does not mean he or she is going to finish the race in first place.

When you trace the cause of someone with a lot of potential falling behind in the race, when you see sickness and ill health, when you find people not trying hard enough, when you see failure and despair, generally somewhere along the line you will find someone who has been negatively affected and otherwise discouraged by people somewhere along the way. It is an absolute fact of life that the company you keep will have an effect on what happens to you.

In athletics, it is common for some players to be extremely good at a sport despite not being tall enough (in basketball), big enough (in football), and so forth. What generally separates these players who do not have all the physical attributes of success is the sheer determination and self-belief inside of them. Having heart and drive can make all the difference. Heart and drive are what push people to the top of any profession and any job. If you are going to reach your full potential, you must possess heart and drive. This is something that wins races, despite any uncontrollable obstacles that may arise.

Heart and drive can be killed, though, if they are not supported. The best thing you can do for yourself is to put yourself in a position where you are supported, where you have the home team advantage. Having the home team advantage is something that can help you win in the game of life.

The post Why Attorneys Need a Home-Field Advantage to Succeed at Law Firms appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

When I was 18 years old, I once responded to an advertisement in the paper that stated a company looking for janitors was offering $15.00 an hour (which now would probably be the equivalent of at least $25.00 an hour). Back then, 20+ years ago, that was pretty good money for a janitor in Detroit. I could not believe my luck in seeing such an advertisement and I called up the number on the advertisement. The person on the other end of the line told me to “come right over!” The location of the janitor job was around an hour away from my house but I did not care. For that kind of money, I was willing to drive that far, to and from work at any hour.

I pulled up into a plaza of industrial buildings and noticed the parking lot next to my destination address was completely full. In fact, there was a long line of people that came clear on out the front door. I got in line and stood there with probably about 100 other people who were all applying for the same job. Some came from 2+ hours away, and every single one of them was incredibly enthusiastic about working as a janitor for $15.00 an hour. I wondered how with so many people in line I possibly stood a chance of getting the job. I was wearing a pair of khakis and a tie and wondered if I was overdressed.

The line was moving quite slowly; however, after around 45 minutes I snaked my way to a reception desk and was handed a standard employment application. The receptionist told me to go into a room and fill it out. Since I did not have a lot of experience, this was quite easy. I then was told to go to another room and wait. I went into the waiting room and sat there with around 10 other people. Every few minutes, one of us was taken into an “interview room”. I remember wondering to myself at that time, what the company really did. There was only a suite number on the door and there were no signs of any business apart from the interviews that were going on. It was a very unusual set up, and I found myself wondering what the company actually did.

After 20 minutes or so I was taken into the interview room. It was a sparsely furnished office that had what looked like a new cheap leather couch, and some other pieces of furniture that looked more like they belonged in a bachelor’s apartment. Inside the interview room was a guy who looked like he was in his early to mid 20s, who had a big smile on his face. He remained seated at his desk, while on a chair off to the side, was a girl who appeared to be his girlfriend, in tight jeans, smiling and looking pretty bored.

“Hi. I’m Jerry! We filled the janitor job already!” the young man said. “But I have got something for you!”

Jerry started to explain something about selling knives door to door and selling other knickknacks and how I could earn hundreds of dollars a day. I did not really understand it but I agreed to be there the next morning. From what little I understood, there was a “commission” offered.

I had a strange sense of excitement but I was also disappointed walking out of the office. On the one hand I was excited to have landed a job that theoretically could pay hundreds of dollars a day; however, on the other hand, I knew that I had been suckered with an advertisement for a job that really did not exist. The place of business I had visited had only consisted of three small offices, and there was no way that the company could have needed a janitor, let alone a janitor for $15.00 an hour.

The next day I got up for work and proceeded to navigate my Yugo through the rush hour Detroit traffic. I arrived at the office around 25 minutes late because I was not prepared for the sluggish drive. When I got there everyone was hopping into their cars and so forth with a bunch of various merchandise (cheap sets of knives and all sorts of ridiculous knicknacks) to go out and sell. I found Jerry, who shook my hand and told me that I would be partnering up for my first couple of days with another sales guy, Dave. I met Dave, who looked like a farmer, and helped him with a couple of boxes that we put in the back of his pickup truck.

The few of the company’s offices I had seen were somehow all connected to a warehouse that was filled with all sorts of stuff that looked like it had fallen out of a plane from China. There was cheap clothing, small carpets, kitchen utensils, really bad electronics with strange names on them and more. It did not take a brain surgeon, nor a lot of business experience in this case, to figure out that this guy was (1) importing knicknacks from China for next to nothing, (2) putting ads in the paper for janitors paying more than a janitor was worth, (3) attracting guys desperate for a good job like me, and (4) setting guys like me loose on the street with his shoddy merchandise to try and sell it for a commission.

Dave was a farmer, or used to be. He lived with his mother on a sugar beet farm around 90 minutes from the office/warehouse. Something had happened that made that particular line of work no longer good for Dave, who was in his late 20s.

He had been selling these items for a few weeks, and as we got into the car he told me that I had missed “a great morning” and should never arrive at work late again. At the time, in the late 1980s, Japanese management was really in vogue and Jerry led everyone in Japanese-style exercises inside a warehouse each morning, which is what the Japanese companies did with their employees, Dave told me. For 20 minutes or so each morning Jerry would lead a group of 50+ men in various stretches and cheer about the company to get everyone excited about the day ahead. Then he would give them a pep talk and hand out $20 bills as “bonuses” to the people who had done the best with sales the day before.

“Jerry handed out over $200 this morning!” Dave exclaimed.

“This is an incredible opportunity!” Dave produced a brochure that looked like it had been done on a typewriter, which promised earnings of over $100,000 a year if someone excelled at selling products on the street for six months. Dave told me he was one of the top salesmen and would be definitely earning over $100,000 a year within six months. I noticed the brochure had a few typos.

Dave could not stop talking about what a great opportunity this was.

He told me that we were going to Downtown Detroit to sell the knives and stuff he had brought along with him that day. I did not ask about the logic of this plan, but within an hour or so we were downtown and walking along a dangerous looking section of Gratiot Avenue. Dave had brought a blanket that looked like his mother had knitted it. He made me take all of our wares out of the truck bed and put them in the front seat, covering them up with the blanket. He told me that he knew other salesmen who had been robbed.

We walked down Gratiot Avenue with our collection of knives, etc., and would stop to talk with people at bus stops, others standing on street corners, and any other people who just happened to be walking down the street. We were working in a really bad neighborhood and everyone we approached seemed amused, and willing to give us a little time of our day. Additionally, we were the only white people. The site of a white farmer with his unique “farmer-like” accent, plus an 18 year old kid in a tie carrying knives must have looked entertaining.

Detroit has been undergoing a massive collapse for decades. At the time, the street we were walking down had mostly boarded up stores. However, despite all of the boarded up stores, there was the occasional liquor store, rent to own store, pawn shop, or other shops that seemed like a good prospect. Our one and only sale of the day came in a liquor store.

We walked into the liquor store and a young Arabic man and his sister were standing behind a bullet proof glass. When we tried to talk to them about purchasing our cheap tiny radios and knives they could not hear us through the glass. I remember they made us stand out of the way while they helped several customers purchasing beer and other essentials in the middle of the afternoon, and after a few minutes the guy came out of the cage, leaving his sister behind the glass.

The man was really interested in the knife set and radios and agreed to buy five or six of each item. Dave was ecstatic. However, as the man went back behind the bullet proof glass to get the money his sister started yelling at him, telling him that he was spending money recklessly and so forth. One look behind the glass revealed to us that he had made this mistake before. I remember he had a bunch of tee shirts that he was selling, and one of them was a confederate flag. Not a good idea in this neighborhood. For several minutes the brother and sister fought in Arabic and eventually she reached for a cordless phone and started calling someone whom I assumed might be their father, to protest the pending purchase. The guy opened the cash register and handed us the money for the knives and the radio and we got out of there and went down the street to a fast food restaurant for lunch.

Dave treated me to lunch and talked very enthusiastically about the job. He said that this work was going to make him very wealthy, and it was clearly the best job he had ever had. He told me that I was very lucky to have been hired. Deep inside though, I could not help but think that everyone who showed up for work had been hired. It was more a question of how many people actually made the leap and came in for work.

By the end of my first day of work we had made a grand total of $28 in commissions for our cash sales. Dave and I split the money. After lunch and gas expenses I was not left with very much money for the work I had done, maybe a dollar or two. And I was not even the one who made the sale! When we got back to the office I remember I went in to talk with Jerry. He was sitting on that chintzy couch with his girlfriend, who was smoking cigarettes and looked very happy.

“This job does not make a lot of sense,” I told him.

“Of course it does!” he said beaming with enthusiasm.

“No it does not,” I said. “I made $14.00 today and we went all over Detroit and walked the streets the entire day. It makes no sense.”

“Here, things will be better tomorrow,” Jerry said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a giant wad of bills that was at least three inches thick. It looked like his take from the day. He handed me a $5 bill. I took the money and walked out of the office.

I did not go back to the job the next day. I will always be grateful that somehow I got a job delivering pizzas for Domino’s a few days later. That was a job. Each night I would pull up to a house and get paid $1.00 for delivering the pizza–plus minimum wages, plus tips. In addition, I got to eat free pizza all day. Every single day I went to my job delivering pizzas, I made money. I did not have to worry about commissions and if I was going to make the next sale. I always had something to rely on, something steady. I did this job with every ounce of enthusiasm that I had because I valued it. I actually never felt like quitting because compared to the job I had had before, it was the greatest job I could imagine.

There was a huge problem with the job I had been working for Jerry, and it was this: I did not have any repeat work. There was repeat work in the sense that I could have gone out every single day and attempted to sell knives and cheap radios from China. The job was certainly repetitive. But the sort of stuff I was selling was not the stuff that people would buy more than once. The quality was cheap and people would not buy the same junk twice. After all, no one needs more than one set of Ginsu knives. I was selling stuff that could not possibly give me repeat customers or any sort of repeat work. And without any sort of repeat work, a job is useless.

The reason companies fail and people fail is due to the fact they are not getting “repeat work”. If a company is not building good cars then after the car breaks down several times people will choose a different car for their next car. The failure to build a car people want to buy over and over again is one reason companies like General Motors have failed. If someone does bad work, then he or she will not get any new work or repeat work. If someone offers you a contract rather than a full time position, this means they are offering you a job without the promise of any repeat work. There are plenty of jobs out there that offer temporary or one-time-job type work, but there are very few jobs that truly offer good repeat work. When it comes to judging the ultimate value of any job, there is nothing more important than the possibility of generating repeat work.

One of my very first employees was a relative of mine, who I moved out to Los Angeles from Oklahoma and allowed to live in my house. I paid her $35,000 a year to do various clerical duties for me. It was more than she deserved for such work but her father had been very nice to me when I was young. Her father had died flying a helicopter ambulance and I had always wanted to help her when she got older and graduated from college. Once my business started getting off the ground, I called her and told her that I had a job for her, and offered her the chance to move to Los Angeles.

When I started, I was in a very small office (ok, I was in my garage), and I sat right next to the FAX machine. This girl was very attractive and had been a model for local department store newspaper inserts and so forth around the small Midwestern town where she had grown up. After she had been working for me for a few weeks, I started to see transmissions come over the FAX machine every few hours from various modeling agencies. She would rush in a few minutes after the FAX had arrived and grab it off the FAX machine. She then started going on various tryouts for modeling jobs during the day and then started missing at least a couple of days a week while going out on tryouts. She then started to get the occasional modeling job here or there. I was angry about this, but at the same time I thought this woman was young, and probably very excited to be getting this work.

Then she asked me for a raise.

She told me that she was paid up to $75.00 an hour to do modeling and therefore was “worth more” on the market.

“How many hours do you model for?” I asked her.

“Usually around one,” she said.

“And you need to drive there, drive back and wait around the whole day until they decide to take your picture, right? And this is all for $75.00 for one hour’s worth of work?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do they pay your health insurance and could you be doing this job in 20 years? Will they give you work every single day of the week?” I asked.

We went back and forth a little bit and she kept saying, “But they pay me $75.00 an hour when I am working and that is at least 5 times what you are paying me!”

She became very resentful about the job I had given her and eventually decided that I was not paying her enough. She started creating all sorts of problems, and I eventually had to let her go. She moved out of my house and I have not seen her since. I feel incredibly bad about this. In fact, it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I remember at the time, I had decided to take a self-improvement class called Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, so I could hopefully influence this woman to come to appreciate what I was doing for her. I am still saddened that I had to let her go, because it ended up destroying the relationship. However, the greatest lesson I got out of this, was that it is important to always have repeat work, over and above those handsome one-offs.

The boss or company that has a job waiting for you there every single day of the week has given you a gift. This is no different than having a large sum of money in the bank. All you need to do is show up to claim the interest on this money.

When I was a senior at the University of Chicago, I took an economics class from a very famous economist. If I recall correctly, I had to participate in an auction or something in order to get into the class. I do not remember too many specifics; however, I do remember, one day he lectured the class about his job and what it took for the school to make someone like him a tenured professor. He stated that he made $150,000 a year and that in order for the school to offer someone like him a tenure (a lifetime job), they need to have at least $3,000,000 in endowment, which translates into $3,000,000 earning roughly 5% interest per year. He said that based on the fact that he would have the job for the rest of his life, there was really no difference between him and a guy who has $3,000,000 in the bank. In fact, due to his tenure and the amount of money the school needed to set aside in order to pay him, the economist believed that he was better off than lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and so forth–most of whom never have $3,000,000 in the bank. Based on the way he looked at it, he said, he was a multimillionaire.

What is tenure in a university? Tenure is repeat work and a lifetime’s supply of work. It is almost impossible to take someone’s tenure away in a university once he or she has earned it. Federal judges are appointed for life, and receive salaries for their entire lives. Having secure, repeat work, is no different from tenure. It can make you rich, very rich, if you look at it the same way as the famous economist did at the University of Chicago.

There is a great quote in Jim Collins’s new book, How the Mighty Fall:

In researching the final stages of decline, looking at capitulation of once-towering companies, I kept thinking about how Professor Bill Lazier began his course on small business management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He’d walk into class and begin cold-calling students.

“What’s the central issue in this case?” he’d push.

Students who had worked at large companies, consulting firms, and investment banks gave answers like “their strategic choices” or “identifying their value chain” or “developing a brand” or any number of other smart-sounding MBA answers.

Unsatisfied by vacuous buzzwords, Lazier would keep pressing, pacing back and forth across the classroom. “No! Think!”

Finally, some student would venture forth, “Well, I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but they can’t make payroll next week. The company is going to run out of cash.”

Lazier would stop pacing, walk over to the blank chalkboard, and write in giant letters (and I mean giant, at least two feet high) one word: CASH.

“Never forget,” Lazier would say. “You pay your bills with cash…”
…

While editing this piece I was pondering a stunning news story: “General Motors, the Monumental Symbol of American Corporate Power, Seeks Salvation from the Government….” GM–running out of cash. Even while considering a company that once was the largest corporation in the world, Lazier’s lesson can demonstrate full force: You pay your bills in cash.

The most important thing for you in your job is to have access to cash as well as, cash that flows. Companies fail because they do not have access to cash. People also fail and flounder because they do not have access to cash. Work that repeats itself means access to cash, which is something you should never take for granted. Having longer term access to cash can make or break your career and your life.

You cannot get a mortgage in most cases unless you can prove that you have access to work that repeats itself. Banks do not want to take the risk that you will not be able to pay them over the long term. They will generally only give you a mortgage these days when you prove you have access to steady cash flow. Work that repeats itself is liberating because it gives you more options and control over your life and the things you can do. Regardless of whether you are working for Domino’s Pizza, or some other big corporation, you need to find work that repeats itself.

Going for the quick buck can often be at the expense of your long term career. I remember during the “Dot Com” explosion of 1999 and 2000, many people left law firms for what they thought were going to be jobs of limitless opportunities. Many of these jobs for Internet startups had very little salaries with all sorts of stock options and so forth, which ultimately turned out to be worthless. When these people tried to go back to the law firms most of them were not hired again. Many of them then spent years meandering around from job to job, never finding a steady income–certainly not anything as good as the jobs they had left inside of law firms. Thousands of people also left banks and other corporations to take jobs and work that did not repeat itself.

There are always going to be numerous temptations out there for various types of jobs and work that does not repeat itself. Work that does not repeat itself, however, is the most dangerous sort of work there is, because there is no long term fulfillment in it. Seek and cherish work that does repeat itself. Even a much lower salary and work that does not on the surface look appealing can be a very worthwhile job if it offers work that repeats itself.

THE LESSON

Repeat work is always more valuable to you than one-offs, however well-paid they may be. Companies succeed or fail depending on their ability to generate repeat business. Repeat work grants you more options and control over your life and actions. Even work with a lower salary, which might not initially seem appealing, can be beneficial if it promises repeat jobs.

The post The Most Valuable Work Is Work That Repeats Itself appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

–Harrison

Chapter 1. Thought and Character

Chapter 2. Effect Of Thought On Circumstances

Chapter 3. Effects Of Thoughts On Health And Body

Chapter 4 Thought And Purpose

Chapter 5 The Thought-Factor In Achievement

Chapter 6 Vision And Ideals

Chapter 7 Serenity

James Allen

As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those which are deliberately executed.

Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.

Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harboring of groveling thoughts.

Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.

Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this – that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.

As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.

Man is always the master, even in his weakest and most abandoned state; but in his weakness and degradation he is the foolish master who misgoverns his “household.” When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master, directing his energies with intelligence, and fashioning his thoughts to fruitful issues. Such is the conscious master, and man can only thus become by discovering within himself the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter of application, self-analysis, and experience.

Only by much searching and mining are gold an diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. And that he is the maker of his character, the molder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he may unerringly prove: if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and circumstances; if he will link cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself. In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that “He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened”; for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts, By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.

Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.

Every man is where he is by the law of his being. The thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those who feel “out of harmony” with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.

As the progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions. But when he realizes that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.

That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any length of time practiced self-control and self-purification, for he will have noticed that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition. So true is this that when a man earnestly applies himself to remedy the defects in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears. It reaches the height of its cherished aspirations. It falls to the level of its unchastened desires – and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.

The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.

Following the inmost desires, asporations, thoughts, by which he allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o’-the wisps of imoure imagimimgs or steadfastly walking the highway of strong and high endeavor), a man at last arrives at their fruition and fulfillment in the outer conditions of his life. The laws of growth and adjudtment everywhere obtain.

A man does not come to the alms-house or the jail by the tyranny of fate of circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power.Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious inclinations, or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations. And man, therefore, as the Lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment. Even at birth the soul comes to its own, and through every step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.

Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul or clean. The “divinity that shapes our ends” is in ourselves; it is our very self. Man is manacled only by himself. Thought and action are the jailers of Fate – they imprison, being base. They are also the angels of Freedom – they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.

In the light of this truth, what, then, is the meaning of “fighting against circumstances”? It means that a man is continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time he is nourishing and preserving its cause in his heart. That cause may take the form of a conscious vice or an unconscious weakness; but whatever it is, it stubbornly retards the efforts of its possessor, and thus calls aloud for remedy.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves. They therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life?

It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one’s virtue. But not until a man has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not of his bad qualities. And on the way to that supreme perfection, he will have found working in his mind and life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignorance and blindness, that his life is, and always was, justly ordered, and that all his past experiences, good and bad, were the equitable outworking of his evolving, yet unevolved self.

Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results. Bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles. Men understand this law in the natural world, and work with it. But few understand it in the mental and moral world (though its operation there is just as simple and undeviating), and they, therefore, do not cooperate with it.

Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being. The sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure. Suffering ceases for him who is pure. There could be not object in burning gold after the dross had been removed, and perfectly pure and enlightened being could not suffer.

The circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental inharmony. The circumstances which a man encounters with blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought. Wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed and poor. blessedness and riches are only joined together when the riches are rightly and wisely used. And the poor man only descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden unjustly imposed.

Indigence and indulgence are the two extremes of wretchedness. They are both equally unnatural and the result of mental disorder. A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being. And happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer, of the man with his surroundings.

A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And as he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts. He ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.

Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe. Justice, not injustice, is the soul and substance of life. And righteousness, not corruption, is the molding and moving force in the spiritual government of the world. This being so, man has but to right himself to find that the universe is right; and during the process of putting himself right, he will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter toward him.

The proof of this truth is in every person, and it therefore admits of easy investigation by systematic introspection and self-analysis. Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into habits of drunkenness and sensuality, which solidify into circumstances of destitution and disease. Impure thoughts of every kind crystallize into enervating and confusing habits, which solidify into distracting and adverse circumstances. Thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence. Lazy thoughts crystallize into habits of uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary. Hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution. Selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into distressful circumstances.

On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances. Pure thoughts crystallize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace. Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom. Energetic thoughts crystallize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness. Gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances. Loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches.

A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. Nature helps every man to the gratification of the thoughts which he most encourages, and opportunities are presented which will most speedily bring to the surface both the good and evil thoughts.

Let a man cease from his sinful thoughts, and all the world will soften toward him, and be ready to help him. Let him put away his weakly and sickly thoughts, and lo! opportunities will spring up on every hand to aid his strong resolves. Let him encourage good thoughts, and no hard fate shall bind him down to wretchedness and shame. The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your evermoving thoughts.

Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a man as speedily as a bullet, and they are continually killing thousands of people just as surely though less rapidly. The people who live in fear of disease are the people who get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole body, and lays it open to the entrance of disease; while impure thoughts, even if not physically indulged, will soon shatter the nervous system.

Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigor and grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instrument, which responds readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed, and habits of thought will produce their own effects, good or bad, upon it.

Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood so long as they propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart comes a clean life and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and corrupt body. Thought is the fountain of action, life and manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.

Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food.

If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.

I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good will and serenity.

On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others by strong and pure thought, others are carved by passion. Who cannot distinguish them? With those who have lived righteously, age is calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed, like the setting sun. I have recently seen a philosopher on his deathbed. He was not old except in years. He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.

There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all – such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day to day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to worries, fears, troubles, and self-pityings, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead, just as surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power-evolving universe.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being. But whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.

Those who are not prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose, should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focused, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not be accomplished.The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth – that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will at once begin to exert itself, and adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop, and will at last grow divinely strong. As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.

To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.

Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded; they are disintegrating elements which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless. Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplish anything, and never can. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in.

The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.

He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. His every thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met and wisely overcome. His purposes are seasonably planted, and they bloom and bring forth fruit which does not fall prematurely to the ground.

Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force. He who knows this is ready to become something higher and stronger than a mere bundle of wavering thoughts and fluctuating sensations. He who does this has become the conscious and intelligent wielder of his mental powers.

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself. He must, by his own efforts, develop the strength which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition.

It has been usual for men to think and to say, “Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor.” Now, however, there is among an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment, and to say, “One man is an oppressor because many are slaves; let us despise the slaves.”

The truth is that oppressor and slave are cooperators in ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting themselves. A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor. A perfect Love, seeing the suffering which both states entail, condemns neither. A perfect Compassion embraces both oppressor and oppressed. He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.

A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts.

Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. He may not, in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness, by any means; but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. A man whose first thought is bestial indulgence could neither think clearly nor plan methodically. He could not find and develop his latent resources, and would fail in any undertaking. Not having commenced manfully to control his thoughts, he is not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He is not fit to act independently and stand alone, but he is limited only by the thoughts which he chooses.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice. A man’s worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly, upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success, the more blessed an enduring will be his achievements.

The universe does not favor the greedy, the dishonest, the vicious, although on the mere surface it may sometimes appear to do so; it helps the honest, the magnanimous, the virtuous. All the great Teachers of the ages have declared this in varying forms, and to prove and know it a man has but to persist in making himself more and more virtuous by lifting up his thoughts.

Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge, or for the beautiful and true in life and nature. Such achievements may be sometimes connected with vanity and ambition but they are not the outcome of those characteristics. They are the natural outgrowth of long an arduous effort, and of pure and unselfish thoughts.

Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. He who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts, who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish, will, as surely as the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become wise and noble in character, and rise into a position of influence and blessedness.

Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought. By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends. By the aid of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought a man descends.

A man may rise to high success in the world, and even to lofty altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts to take possession of him.

Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.

All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought, are governed by the same law and are of the same method; the only difference lies in the object of attainment. He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little. He who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.

Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the afterworld, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it. Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it.

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve. Shall man’s basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law. Such a condition of things can never obtain – “Ask and receive.”

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life. The vision of the wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind which he wields with world-wide influence and almost unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities. He speaks, and lo! lives are changed. Men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn, no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.

The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. See a man grow rich, they say, “How lucky he is!” Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, “How highly favored he is!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, the remark, “How chance aids him at every turn!” They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it “luck”; do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune”; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance.”

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by, this you will become.

A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being, for such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought. As he develops a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast, serene.

The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Even the ordinary trader will find his business prosperity increase as he develops a greater self-control and equanimity, for people will always prefer to deal with a man whose demeanor is strongly equable.

The strong calm man is always loved and revered. He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm. Who does not love a tranquil heart, a sweet-tempered, balanced life? It does not matter whether it rains or shines, or what changes come to those possessing these blessings, for they are always sweet, serene, and calm. That exquisite poise of character which we call serenity is the last lesson culture; it is the flowering of life, the fruitage of the soul. It is precious as wisdom, more to be desired than gold – yea, than even fine gold. How insignificant mere money-seeking looks in comparison with a serene life – a life that dwells in the ocean of Truth, beneath the waves, beyond the reach of tempests, in the Eternal Calm!

“How many people we know who sour their lives, who ruin all that is sweet and beautiful by explosive tempers, who destroy their poise of character, and make bad blood! It is a question whether the great majority of people do not ruin their lives and mar their happiness by lack of self-control. How few people we meet in life who are well-balanced, who have that exquisite poise which is characteristic of the finished character!”

Yes, humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt. Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him.

Tempest-tossed souls, wherever ye may be, under whatsoever conditions ye may live, know this – in the ocean of life the isles of Blessedness are smiling, and sunny shore of your ideal awaits your coming. Keep your hand firmly upon the helm of thought. In the bark of your soul reclines the commanding Master; He does but sleep; wake Him. Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power.

Say unto your heart, “Peace, be still!”

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There is a crow outside, who appears to be ill – he’s not doing well at all. The crow appears to be infected with West Nile Virus. He wanders around appearing drunk, frequently falling over. He stands in one place most of the time. The interesting thing about this crow, however, is that all around him, there are a multitude of other crows cackling and cawing at him, almost as if they are supporting him – cheering him on. So many crows perched high up in the trees are making noise all day long, looking down upon him.

Anytime I go outside, the crows go crazy and warn their sick friend that I am around. They fly close to me overhead if I walk near the crow. My family and I have been doing what we can to help, offering him water and so forth. However, the crow appears to be too out of it even to drink water.

The crow spent his first several days wandering around the garden. More recently, he has taken up residence on some wooden steps. When humans are not around, groups of crows congregate around this particular crow keeping him company. All of the steps near the crow are completely covered in bird droppings.

Having never seen animals act like this, I am absolutely astonished by how supportive these other crows have been. Typically when an animal is dying, other surrounding animals leave it to die. However, here the crow has a huge audience of supporters cheering for him, hoping he will get better. These crows are really showing a ton of solidarity for this cause.

Most people do not want to be part of a losing situation. Being part of a losing situation makes us extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable, and it is something that we want to avoid altogether. In fact, this is almost a law of the world: Most people, animals, and others will do what they can to avoid a losing situation. That is what makes the situation with this crow so remarkable.

I spent a lot of time visiting relatives and others in hospitals growing up. Hospitals to me are about the most depressing places on earth. There are people who have lost their mind. Other people are writhing in pain. Some people are dying. The food is horrible. The surfaces are so hard, often cold. Most of the people are very impersonal. There is a lot not to like about hospitals.

I remember sitting in the hospital once with one of our old family friends when he had come to visit a very sick relative of ours. He was in his 40s at the time and had spent his life in a “hard charging” way having all sorts of adventures and mishaps. He drank a lot and used drugs. He had slept around a lot. He wore leather and rode around on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He had inherited a lot of money and did not need to work.

But when we saw him that day, within a few moments of entering the hospital it appeared that everything had changed with him. I saw his entire face frown, his body slump, and he broke out into a sweat. I am not sure if it was that he was confronting his own mortality at the moment, or what it was. What I do know, however, was that the sight of the hospital made him physically ill. He excused himself and went to the bathroom where he must have thrown up.

We had walked through the corridors on the way to visit my relative, and the doors to all the individual patient rooms were open. Our friend had looked in each room and each room seemed to hold something that was more disheartening than the last. A man on a lung machine. Someone in another room who looked over 120 years old. Someone in another room who was bandaged from head to toe.

This friend visited my relative for only a few minutes, just enough time to turn down some warm apple juice that was offered to him by an orderly. This person had been close to our family, and specifically this relative, for his entire life. But after that hospital visit, he just dropped off the face of the earth. He did not even attend the funeral a few years later.

“I haven’t been in a hospital in 20 years!” I remember him exclaiming as we had walked through the automatic doors of the hospital entrance, with a smile still on his face.

But then, within a matter of moments, suddenly he was confronted with his own mortality, with losing, and with death. And he simply could not bear it.

None of us want to be associated with the losing side.

When I was growing up, my best friend lived with his grandmother, who had gotten multiple sclerosis at a young age, and eventually was confined to bed. When I used to visit my friend, his grandmother loved to sit and talk for hours on end. She was a nice woman and I would often sit and chat with her. However, I am ashamed to admit that sitting with her for long periods of time often made me uncomfortable. Looking back I think it was mostly because I was afraid of being sick myself. You might call me a horrible person, but I often feel uneasy when I am speaking with people who are sick and dying, because it reminds me that I too will not be around forever.

I also feel uncomfortable when spending time with people who are losing and doing horribly. For example, on the school playground when kids would pick each other for teammates, the children who are picked last are 99 out of 100 times not the most popular kids. The kids who are bad at sports also typically experience a spillover effect, wherein they also become unpopular with the other kids, due to their lack of athletic ability. The other kids do not want to associate with losers.

I think this is something in our genetic makeup, which helps us with survival. If we associate with people who are losing we are likely to lose as well. We want to stay on the side of the people who are winning. We know that being around winners is most likely to make us a winner as well.

If a man wants to attract the most desirable mate, he does not say to himself: “I am going to fail at everything I do, be unemployed, and lose at everything. I am also going to let my body go and get really depressed.”

No. Generally, the man will do what he can to better himself and be as attractive as possible, as powerful and happy as possible, and as wealthy as possible. The goal is to always be, or at least appear to be on the winning side. In order to impress a woman, a man does not walk up to her and start explaining what a loser he is, and how he fails at everything he tries. Instead, he does the opposite. When you hear about the most desirable people getting married they are generally not marrying the weak, down on their luck, and depressed people out there. They are pairing up with those who appear to be on the winning side.

Did someone ever recommend a bad doctor to you?

“Hey, this guy is horrible and he will really misdiagnose and mess you up. He’ll hack you up real bad. You gotta check him out.”

Of course no one has ever said this to you. Instead, the doctors you get recommended are usually people who are “the best in their field” and the top of this or that. Every time someone has recommended a doctor to me they have told me how the doctor won this or that award – i.e., the doctor is on the winning side.

In the practice of law, no one ever recommends attorneys to others with a recommendation like:

“You need to use this guy. He lost the case for me and has lost his last several cases. Almost all of his former clients are in jail!”

We simply do not receive these sorts of recommendations from people. Instead we hear about the attorney who wins all of his cases – the best in town.

If a sports team is losing and doing horribly, its attendance will sag and go down. Some will go to watch the games, but far fewer people want to go watch a losing team than a winning team. We want to associate with winners.

In school growing up, and out in the adult world, you never see a group of happy people standing around talking to someone who is depressed and complaining. Instead, the person they are attracted to is the one who is positive in nature, smiling, and excited about the world. This is the person who attracts friends and followers.

Advertisers do not hire as spokespeople the athletes who have lost more than they have won; they hire the people who win and are constantly exuding excitement about what they are doing.

And this brings me to you: Everyone wants to associate with winners and hire winners, and everyone runs like hell from losers. The smartest employers out there typically hire based on attitude. The best people I have hired in my life have not had the best educations, the best families, or even the best experience: They had the best attitude. A great attitude is the most important possible quality you can possess, and there is nothing more important to an employer.

With very limited exceptions, almost any skill can be taught on the job. You could learn to fly, and land a 747 airplane with 500 passengers on it in a week, with no previous flight experience if you needed to. A surgeon could teach you how to remove a gall bladder in a week. A lawyer could show you how to write a brief in a week or so. Almost every skill is teachable but the one thing that is not teachable is your attitude. A winning attitude is what people want to associate with, and it will attract others to you.

I remember several years ago after I had been practicing law for a few years, I went out on some interviews. In virtually every instance where I was less than 100% enthusiastic about practicing law, my previous job, and law firm experience in general, I did not get the job. All it took was me offering up a couple of things I did not like or that rubbed me the wrong way. By contrast, In virtually every instance where I was 100% enthusiastic about practicing law and working in a law firm, I got the job.

You see, law firms like people who they can associate with the word ‘positive.’

One of the strangest things about law firms is that if someone has been laid off from their previous position they have an extraordinarily difficult time getting hired by law firms of the same prestige level again. The reason? Because the next law firm who interviews them knows that the law firm did not lay everyone off and wonders why the law firm decided to lay this person off and not others. The implication becomes, almost immediately, that this particular person was not on the winning team. Law firms do not want to hire losers.

I have noticed throughout the years that when people have been fired from their previous job, or if they left a law firm under bad circumstances, they will almost never get hired by another law firm if they talk about this in the interview. Instead, the smart ones bat around the subject, or make it sound as if they did not do anything wrong, and they somehow make everything seem as if they are on the “winning side.” Then they end up getting the job. But a top firm will not hire a lawyer who dwells on the negative, even for an instant.

Neither would you. Smart employers simply do not want any sour grapes when they are interviewing people. Negative people will almost always bring that negativity with them and infect those around them. This is just how it works.

As someone in the working world, your attitude is crucial for your success because this is largely what employers buy. If employers buy bad attitudes then they are going to hurt their organization. If employers buy good attitudes then they are going to help their organization. The right attitude is crucial for success.

If you have a good attitude then everything will fall into place. You need to look like you are on the winning team and constantly show yourself to be a winner–even if times are tough. People do not want to hire losers or people with bad attitudes.

THE LESSON

Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.

Read More About Why Your Attitude is Just as Important as the Quality of Your Work:

• Your attitude is hugely important.  If you have not read it, you should read the essay “A Message to Garcia and Your Career”
• Are You a Critic
• See Your Job and the World from the Bright Side and Not the Dark Side

The post Sick Crows, Your Attitude, and Being on the Winning Team: Lessons for Career Success appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

Back when I was around 21 years old, my best friend Joe Friendmann and I used to hang out in Downtown Detroit on Thursday nights. There were bars that were set up in old river boats, and a ton of other young college students who had grown up around Detroit would head down to these boats and meet up there. It was a lot of fun for the most part and it was always enjoyable to catch up with people I had grown up with. This was something I looked forward to each week.

Detroit has a bad reputation in many respects and it is mostly for good reasons. I remember we would generally have to park at least 100 yards from the boat, and on the walk to the boat from the car, we would generally get accosted by one beggar or another. I have always given money to beggars on the street for the most part, and when I was younger I tended to do much more of this. Sometimes I would even sit down with the beggars and interview them about their situation to see if I could give them any specific guidance.

One day we got out of the car and started walking towards the boat, and a well-dressed man in a polo shirt and khakis approached us and explained to us that he needed money to eat. I am not sure how everything developed, but I sat down with him and started talking to him in depth about his situation in detail for several hours. We never made it to the bar that night. My friend stayed with me and chatted with this poor man about his situation. What might typically have been a 15-second, or at most a 15-minute exchange, turned into a three-hour long discussion. For the first hour or so of the conversation the man drew me in with a well-crafted tale, which made it seem as if everything would be made right if the man just had $100. He was saying everything I needed to hear, to make me feel as if I should help him:

• He had grown up poor, and as an African American he had experienced racism and this explained his situation.
• He had served America as an officer in the Marine Corps, but had been unable to find a job when he got out and this explained his situation.
• He could not get a job in the auto industry or anywhere because of layoffs in the sector and this explained his situation.
• He had wanted to go to school but was forced to support his mother, because his father had taken off when he was younger; he never knew his father–and all of this explained his situation.

One after another, the man listed his various troubles, making me feel inclined to help him because of what he had been through. Eventually, I offered him a job and told him he could start work for my asphalt company in the morning. He agreed, but I realized right then and there that he was not serious about it. Deep down I realized this guy did not really want an opportunity to work for my asphalt company. In fact, he did not want to work at all. He just wanted $100. I told him I would give him an advance after the first day of his employment. He responded by telling me that that was not good enough because he needed $100 right then and there.

Periodically throughout my conversation with the man, other beggars would come over, looking for money from us.

“Get away, I’m working them!” he would tell them.

This seemed a little unusual but I did not pay a lot of attention to it at the time. Then I started noticing various inconsistencies in his stories. For example, an hour after telling me that he never knew his father, he started telling me that his father used to beat him. A couple of hours into the conversation, I realized it was all bullshit and he really was just “working” me and my friend for money. Every chance he got he attempted to tell me he needed more money. We figured that he was probably trying to get money for crack cocaine, which was very popular on the streets of Detroit at the time.

However, the last thing I wanted to do was tell the guy that I believed he was a drug addict. At some point I decided the best thing to do would be to take him to a store and buy him a bunch of food. If his story was true he would be more than happy to get food. We had been speaking together for the past few hours and the entire time all he could tell me was how hungry he was. He claimed that he needed money for food: he had not eaten for days and needed money to be able to fill his stomach.

It was a surreal experience being in that grocery store with him. I told him he could buy whatever he wanted and he proceeded to pick out a bunch of food. However, I could tell he clearly did not want to be in the grocery store. It was a strange experience because, here I was doing something nice for a person who claimed to be starving, yet I could feel an incredibly hostile vibe coming from the man the entire time we were in the grocery store. Instead of being appreciative, he appeared very, very angry with me.

When we exited the grocery store, the man now had a bunch of food–enough to sustain him for a few days at least. But I knew he did not really want it–just as he did not really want a job. He started to turn mean as we walked toward the car.

“I did not want any fucking groceries, I just wanted the money!” he said.

He threw the groceries on the ground, which scared me. I thought he might turn violent. While he was busy kicking and stomping the groceries, my friend and I got in the car, locked the doors, and quickly put the car into gear. The man ran after us and threw a submarine sandwich at the windshield.

I will never forget that moment. It taught me a lot about drugs, people, salesmanship, and life in general. I eventually became a legal recruiter and a big part of my job became to screen people for various jobs. Where I had once tried to help people in the City of Detroit living on the street, my job now became helping people from all over the United States find jobs.

Lawyers would come into my office seeking help and they were often people I knew I simply could not get a job. Sometimes the people did not have the right personality, other times they did not have the grades or experience, and sometimes they just were people I knew, for one reason or another, would probably not get hired. When I saw someone I knew was going to have a difficult — if not impossible — time getting hired, I often would help him or her in every way I knew how. When those efforts did not work I would offer the person a job working for me.

At first the people would be grateful; however, at some point their gratitude would often wear off. When I was first starting out I often did not take a salary at all, and would pay employee salaries before my own. I remember that I was getting divorced, and as my wife was getting ready to get in the car and drive away for the last time, she was yelling at me that we never had enough money. At that time, I remember, the electrical company had cut off the power to our house because I had not paid the bills. I had paid the salaries of people I had newly put on payroll–people I didn’t actually need but had wanted to help, before paying my own electricity bill.

Despite prioritizing my employees and trying to bolster the hopes and dreams of other people, most of them really never knew what I went through in order to help them, and for that reason I am sure most of them never really appreciated it either. More often than not, many people I have helped in the past have not only ever thanked me for the help I gave them, but they were angry that I did not give or do more. The people who have done me the most harm in my life, it seems, are paradoxically the people I have helped the most. The worst employees are also often the people who have had the hardest time finding a job before I got involved.

I am not angry about this in the least; I accept it. In fact, it is a rule I have seen proven time and time again with people I have helped: People often do not appreciate when others try to do good things for them. In fact, more often than not people become angry that you did not do more for them. Now, I am not referring to everyone, of course. There are many exceptions to this rule, and there are a lot of good people out there. The point is, however, that a surprising amount of people out there do not appreciate what others do for them.

In my experience, it is rare that someone takes us under their wing on the street, in an employment office, or elsewhere. It is even rarer for the person who offers the help to be appreciated for his help over time. Most of us are quick to forget the help that we receive, as well as the people who have helped us.

In your life there is an extremely good chance that someone at some point in time has helped you. They helped you when they did not need to, and they very easily could have helped someone else instead of you. They went out of their way to help you and offer you assistance. Take a moment to think about those people who in small and large ways have made positive differences in your quality of life.

Several years ago I was interviewing an older man for a job. He was probably in his late 60s. He showed up for the interview, was very professional, and did very well. I had been interviewing a series of Chief Financial Officer candidates for a job, and had probably interviewed around 30 people at this point. When this particular candidate got up to leave the interview he said something I will never forget:

“I would really appreciate being hired for this job. I want you to know that this job is important to me and I would be very grateful.”

What made this so astonishing was that this man had retired from another job with millions of dollars in stock options several years ago. He did not need the money and wanted simply to remain busy.

I had never heard someone say something like this in an interview. I still remember his face to this day, and his letting me know he would be grateful for the opportunity really struck a chord with me. Out of the thousands of people I had interviewed over the years, I had never heard this before. And I have never heard it since.

People can say whatever they want but we often know that despite whatever they say, they are not being 100% honest with us. For example, have you ever spoken with a salesperson who said all the right things about a product, and yet there was just something that made you not believe him, so you did not buy the product? In a similar vein, have you ever met someone and felt a connection–and they did not really need to say anything about the product, yet you ended up connecting with them anyway? I have.

It is about honesty and sincerity. The man in the interview was being 100% honest and sincere. I realized that he really would be grateful for the job, and that moved me.

Most people have two versions of themselves.

The first version is the version they walk around with each day. This is their “shell identity” and the identity that they call themselves to the world. For example, people may say “I am an attorney”, “I am an important executive”, and so forth. This is the person who is most often portrayed in interviews. There is a lack of human connection when interfacing with the shell identity, and it is mostly just a lot of talk.

The second identity that people have is the identity that they really want to be–the “core identity”. For example, there are people who want to be famous actors and actresses, others who want to be sports celebrities and so forth. However, the identity that everyone wants to be is typically a good person, someone who is doing something positive for the world.

You want to be a good person just as I do. I am nothing special and the fact that I have helped people does not make me unique or special.

What the man showed me in the interview that day was a reflection of my “core identity”. He essentially set me up so that I would consistently feel like a good person if I hired him. He was tapping into something that we all have, which is the need to feel like good people and to be appreciated.

There is nothing more important you can do in your interviews than allow the people who are interviewing you to know you will appreciate them if they hire you. It is equally important to appreciate those who hire you and to make them feel like good people. Be a constant reminder that they made the right choice. And never forget to appreciate the people who have helped you along on your way. You should work to let those around you know how well appreciated they are. When you appreciate those around you, more help will come your way.

THE LESSON

It is important to appreciate the contributions of those around you. Many people do not appreciate the good things that others do around them. It is rare for people to offer help in any situation, and even rarer for that person to be appreciated for their contributions. The more you appreciate the help that you have received, the more help will come your way.

Read More About If You Spend Time With Negative People, Your Organization Will Assume that You too Have a Negative Attitude and it Will Hurt You:

• Surround Yourself With Positive People
• Plant Yourself in Good Soil
• Self Image
• The People You Work and Associate With Can Either Make or Break You

The post How Appreciating Those Around You Strengthens Your Career and Reputation appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

This may seem like a very trivial thing to say, but this is happening in epidemic proportions around this country. It’s spinning out of control and it’s hurting our economy, individual careers, and your future to the same incredible degree it’s hurting mine.

A few months ago, a friend of mine and I discussed working together on a small business deal. My friend does a show for ESPN and when he is not filming the show the studio just sits there. He thought it would be fun to start filming a show announcing sports scores and streaming this information over the Internet on his website. He wanted someone to help him with some of the business aspects, and I agreed to do so. In order to do this, we needed to draw up a contract outlining our responsibilities.

I have another old friend who’d recently become a partner at a big law firm in Los Angeles. I asked him to put together a simple agreement. The agreement was a standard, “form” type of contract and I knew it would not take him more than an hour. Although our firm has an in-house attorney who could have easily drafted this document, I wanted to give my friend some business, since he was a new partner, and also introduce him to my friend from ESPN. I thought this might result in some work down the road for him. I was trying to do a nice thing.

My friend at the law firm called me after I requested he email over a short form agreement. Pretty soon, he was trying to talk me into spending over $20,000 on this agreement, which included all sorts of unnecessary work. I told him to just email me a form agreement and not to do any work on the project. He said okay. A few weeks later I still had not received anything and called him looking for the agreement. He was out of the office and my call was transferred to a paralegal who said she would get an agreement right over to me. A couple of hours later I received an email from the paralegal with an agreement. I knew all she had to do was a global “search and replace” to change a few words to the name of our company. It was not a lot of work. It probably took her no more than an hour.

A month or so later I received a bill for over $7,000, charging me $600 an hour for work that simply was not done. The bill had such notations in it as, “Review business plan, 3.5 hours, $2,100.”

The problem was there was no business plan. My friend was literally making things up and lying about the work he had supposedly done. Then he started calling me, demanding the money and harassing our accounting department. I was incredibly shocked.

What happened here? Why was this guy doing this?

His attitude was that he deserved something for nothing. This attitude can creep into organizations and destroy them. It can also destroy people.

Around the same time I had referred another friend of mine to the same attorney. The friend I had referred had a very large and serious legal issue. My friend went to Santa Monica to interview the attorney about working for him. After the interview, the attorney said he would send him a fee agreement discussing what the fees would be if he wanted to hire him. Once my friend received the “retainer agreement” (a simple statement of how much the firm will charge for doing the work) he decided he did not want to work with the attorney due to the high costs he was proposing; therefore, my friend did not return the agreement.

A few weeks later, after the attorney realized my friend was not going to work with him, my friend received a bill for $14,000 from the attorney for putting together the retainer agreement. Like me, my friend called this attorney to ask him if he was serious. He told him he was quite serious. My friend refused to pay this bill and is being harassed to this day.

You may find this story as hard to believe as I do but it actually happened. This sort of thing happens in the business world every day. There are tons of people who simply expect something for nothing regardless of whether or not they provide any value. What do you think happened with my friend and this law firm? Exactly what you might expect: the law firm and its owner were indicted for their role in one of the largest scams by a law firm in history. When people start expecting something for nothing it is generally a very good indication something bad is about to go down.

The example of my friend is so serious because he will never get a referral from me again. He will never get business from any of the friends I referred to him. His desire for quick gain has likely cost him millions of dollars in potential referrals throughout his career.

Have you ever focused too much on your rewards? When you focus on getting rewards and not adding value, you stop yourself dead in your tracks. People see right through you.

Your career is not about you at all. Your career is about the fact someone else has a problem that he or she needs you to solve. For any job you have ever had, the company hired you because it had a problem that needed to be solved that it could not solve on its own. Throwing yourself into solving someone else’s problem is essential to growing in your career.

The problem could be as simple as serving clients in a restaurant by bringing them food, or as sophisticated as analyzing the tax issues between a large corporation and a foreign country in which it does business. Regardless of the problem, someone needs you to solve it.

Let me tell you a secret very few people understand: your income, praise, and life will get better in proportion to how well you solve people’s problems, and how dedicated you are, and appear to be, to doing so.

The more you throw yourself into solving other people’s problems, the more dedicated you appear to be to solving other people’s problems. The better you are at delivering results, the better you will do in your life. This is the secret to a great career. It is a simple one but very difficult for most people to do on a day-to-day basis. You are owed nothing by the world or anyone until you go out and create huge sums of value. You need to create value by solving problems to the very best of your ability.

When you look at work simply in terms of the rewards, you are diverting your energy from what creates those rewards in the first place. You need to get into the work you do and make it the best you possibly can. People will hire you and seek you out as long as you create outstanding value for them.

People and companies that expect something without doing work cause enormous damage. Car companies in the United States have experienced this type of damage. One of the fringe benefits of working for car companies, such as General Motors, is their unions often have contracts that prevent people from being laid off. The arrangement is so absurd that if GM wants to close down certain plants, for example, it can, but it needs to keep paying the workers from those plants. For months, and sometimes years, those workers are furloughed in “job banks” where they go and sit all day with no purpose whatsoever in large rooms with nothing to do, all the while getting paid. The absurdity of this is hard to believe. Once a company or group of individuals starts expecting something for nothing, death is often near.

The problems with car companies go even deeper than this. For example, many American car companies do not make cars people want. Refusing to make cars the public wants is an example of not showing value. You cannot get ahead or do anything worthwhile if you do not show value. Once you start expecting something without creating value, the end is often near.

One of the most amazing things about many musicians, movie stars, and other individuals who become really famous is they usually start out creating a lot of value. Their performances contain a lot of passion and they wow audiences with their talents. The same thing goes for businesses that get really popular. They provide tremendous value to people, and people flock to them. However, at some point along the line many businesses and people become famous and something happens – they stop providing value to others, and this leads to their fall.

The indictment of Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was a perfect example of this. Politicians typically start out their careers talking about how they will provide more value to the people than those they are running against. Politicians get elected based on their pronouncements they will help others. At some point, however, for many politicians the office becomes more about providing value to themselves than to others, and this is when politicians typically fall. One quote from the Wall Street Journal really stuck out for me:

Mr. Blagojevich appeared frustrated that the Obama team didn’t appear willing to talk about favors to the governor in exchange for a favorable appointment.

“They’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them,” the governor said, according to the affidavit. It further claimed that Mr. Blagojevich expressed frustration at being “stuck” in his job as governor, which pays $177,412, according to one conversation alleged in the affidavit.

Here Blagojevich is complaining about his salary and what he believes is due him. When I think about this I am absolutely amazed. I can imagine it must be a tremendous amount of work to win a governor’s election. People do not run for the position for the money. In this quote you can see the governor has become more focused on his own rewards than on what he can deliver to others.

Creating value for others sets up a natural path for rewards. Contributors focus on the work they are doing and the rewards comes naturally. Focusing on the rewards diverts your energy from what generates rewards in the first place – the value your customers, clients, or audience gets from what you do. People want to align themselves with people who are focused on giving.

I want you to be the best you can possibly be. I want you to be constantly focused on creating value. I want you to be a wonderful and capable person on whom the light of the world’s approval is constantly shining. This will happen to you when you focus all of your energies on creating value for others. Get started today.

The post Show Value, Do Not Expect Value: How to Earn Success in Your Career appeared first on Harrisonbarnes.com.

Aristotle believed that more than anything, we seek to be happy. There are some individuals who do their work and continually find happiness in this work. Work for them takes on a meaning that transcends what most of us experience. These people feel completely involved in the work they do and are completely focused. They do not experience emotional turmoil when they are doing their work. In Mihhaly Czikszentmihalyi’s book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” (1990), he described a state of “flow” where people involved in an activity “forget themselves, the time, their problems.” Flow is something that athletes experience when they are “in the zone,” artists experience when they are at their best, and we all are capable of experiencing when we are doing something we love.

According to the great soccer star Pele, during his best games he felt a strange calmness he hadn’t experienced in any of the other games. “It was a type of euphoria; I felt I could run all day without tiring, that I could dribble through any of their teams or all of them, that I could almost pass through them physically. I felt I could not be hurt.”

Flow involves a state where we are able to concentrate with little effort, and where we are able to complete a certain task with very little effort. Another important component of flow, and I would argue the most significant, is a loss of self consciousness. Instead of being conscious of yourself in relation to others, you move into another sort of state. This state Czikszentmihalyi also seems to believe, is “a loss of ego” (p. 122). According to Czikszentmihalyi, loss of ego is a rare transcendent experience.

What is this state of “loss of ego” in our work? How does loss of ego translate into our professions and lives? I know of numerous people whose careers are defined by this state of flow. They do their work in a manner that seems to not involve their ego and, instead, seems to transcend individual and self-seeking types of behavior. They are able to do their work in a way that is similar to the way many people worship. Their work isn’t calculated, and people around them feel good by their presence. They are extraordinarily good at whatever they do. Their ego isn’t involved in their work. Their work isn’t about them; rather, it’s about the work itself.

People who are able to enter a state of flow in their work become “egoless,” and do it while unconcerned with:

• Power or titles
• Personal recognition
• Profit
• Their identity
• Competition

This may sound like an incredible state to be in; however, this is a state that numerous people are able to enter into when they truly love something, and can get into a state of flow. Paradoxically, it is the people who don’t care about power and money, and are able to enter into this state of flow, who most often end up achieving the most, financially and otherwise. These same people often then become controlled by their egos and quickly lose whatever it is they achieved, and subsequently lose flow. It’s the ability to remain in flow and egoless that I believe is one of the greatest determinants of being successful. Since so few people are able to do this, and since this is so relevant to your career, I believe understanding flow and the ego is something that can change your career and life.

One of my first memories as a child was when I was playing outside our apartment in Lansing, Michigan, and my mother called me inside for a few moments. My mother had recently purchased me a yellow Tonka Bulldozer toy, and I had been playing in the bushes of the apartment complex with the toy. Across the way, I noticed there was a boy perhaps a few years older than me also playing with some toys. I went inside for a few moments and when I came back outside my truck was missing. I couldn’t have been more than three years old at the time; however, I can remember to this day how upset I was. I cried and cried, and I remember my mother comforting me. I am sure the boy across the way stole my truck.

The fact that this is one of my first memories is quite striking to me. I would argue that this was one of my first true introductions to my “ego” and the idea that I, like almost everyone on this planet, was getting a piece of my identity from forms, objects, titles, and other things that are not part of me at all. Indeed, my pain related to this little truck being stolen was there because I identified the truck as an extension of myself. As I grew older and older, I came to identify with more toys and other objects that my parents gave me. Then, I would start to see friends with better toys and objects, and start feeling a profound sense of lack because I didn’t have toys and other objects that were as nice. As my life progressed, I would start to admire people who had better houses than I had, more important parents than I had, went to better schools than I did, and so on.

When I was old enough to understand advertisements in magazines and on television, I started to want things there, too. I remember when I was no more than 12 years old I saw a picture of the most expensive car ever manufactured at that time, an Aston Martin Lagonda, and I dreamed of my parents owning this car and driving me around in it. I thought this car was something that would be really meaningful. Several years ago, I purchased one of these used cars for not more than thirty thousand dollars, and spent another thirty thousand dollars restoring it. I did this, I am sure, because there was a part of me that really wanted something for my ego from this car. When you see old men driving around in old cars they have restored, this is what they are most often doing–it’s related to their ego and a sense of lack they are trying to fill from the past with a material object.

My stepfather ran a small boating business and around our small two-bedroom house he always had magazines scattered with pictures of bigger and better boats that he could buy if he ever made enough money. One day, my stepfather came home with a 1977 Chrysler New Yorker, which was the biggest and worst car I had ever seen. Within a few months, I remember a Rolls Royce dealer in Palm Beach, Florida, kept calling our house because my stepfather had indicated he might want to trade the new car in for a Rolls Royce. We never could afford any of this stuff, but my stepfather always dreamed of these things and wanted them. He was never ever satisfied. Was he any different from any of us?

When I got older, I started comparing my bicycles with other kids’ and always wanted the best bike. I never felt like my bike was good enough. I wanted to have the very best bike. In fourth grade or so, when people started having girlfriends in school, it was very, very important to me to have the most desirable girlfriend in the school. I would get into fights on the playground with kids over girls. I continued fighting men in one form or another over women for the next 20+ years until I settled down. When video games came into popularity, I competed with other kids as to who could have more video games. I always wanted to have more and better video games than other kids. Soon, designer jeans came into style, and when I got into seventh grade or so, and I wanted the most pairs of designer jeans–Jordache, Calvin Klein, and Sergio Vallente to name a few. I wanted nothing more than for my mother to take me shopping each weekend to get more clothes. Soon, I wanted a moped as well. I dreamed about getting a moped incessantly.

As I got older and progressed through my life, there was one thing after another that I wanted. There was always something else. It never ended.

• The friends I had.
• The people I associated with.
• It soon became titles like “President” of my class.
• It became recognition for various achievements.
• It became where I went to school.
• Then it became what I did for a living.
• How much money I made when I started as an attorney.
• What sort of car I drove.
• Where I lived.
• How prestigious my employer was.
• How big my company is.
• What school my child goes to.

On and on and on …

Do you see the madness in this? It is all around us and we are all part of it. There is a huge problem with this, and it’s related to the drive that all of us have on both a conscious and subconscious level to somehow add to who we are by possessing or associating with something outside ourselves, such as an object, person, place, or title. Most of this drive is due to our persistent identification with people, things, and other forms outside of ourselves. We subconsciously or consciously believe that our self worth comes from outside of ourselves and not inside of ourselves. We are persistently trying to find ourselves and our identities in things that are outside of ourselves, and the struggle seemingly never, ever ends. It is a sickness, and it is something that almost all of us suffer from. We continually want more and more.

I have been around the world and visited shrines, monasteries, and other sorts of places. Even in the places that seem the most enlightened, people constantly want more and more. Throughout the years, I’ve become involved with various spiritual organizations in my quest to improve my mind. I have gone to groups that preach we need to be in the here and now and not look outside ourselves for value. However, within weeks of attending one of these seminars or events, my phone starts ringing. People learn I am the CEO of a company and assume I must be rich. They call and write wanting money and donations. They talk about how they need a new this or a new that. People visit me at home unannounced, seeking donations and constantly come looking for alms. These are the same people whose message often is “everything is within you.”

It’s almost impossible to find anyone, or any group of people, who is not constantly striving for more and more, and striving to fill some void. There is something missing in almost all of us and in almost all of our groups. You can be part of one religion or another and they may preach to you about how Jesus said we are complete with God, for example. The message is comforting, and our image of Jesus is someone who walked around in sandals and a robe, and was not concerned with wealth. However, regardless of what church you are a part of, they almost all expect you to give them money. There is nothing wrong with this; however, they often use the money to build giant and incredible monuments that boggle the mind with their size and ornateness. You wonder why these same organizations don’t use their resources to support the poor. No matter how much they are given, most religious groups will continue to ask for more and more. It never stops. They will soon want a new building, a new wing to a building, and more. Their hunger will never, ever end.

This is no different from us. We soon want new cars, new televisions, the latest fashions, and more. We, too, are never satisfied. As long as we seek to be complete in objects and forms outside of ourselves, we will never be complete.

People and groups are continually trying to complete themselves by acquiring things, titles, and more. The problem with this line of thinking, though, is that it simply never works. Whatever rewards we receive through possessing one thing, or getting one title, quickly go away and we find something else that we are interested in and “need.” We are living in a society that is dominated by consumerism and the need to possess things. Our measure of progress in our society is almost always related to possessing more and more. We simply spend most of our lives trying to fill a gap that we perceive we have between ourselves and people who we think are better than us.

For the past few years I have employed a driver. I live about an hour or two from my office, depending upon the level of traffic each day. For me, being productive in the car (i.e., my time) is worth more than spending three to four hours sitting behind the wheel each day. I am in Los Angeles and throughout the years, I have had a variety of drivers. I have had professional drivers who were committed to being drivers, and I have had people who didn’t really seem to have any interest in driving. This never comes out in the interviews, as much as I would like it to, but it always comes out.

When I first started interviewing people to be drivers, I started seeing a lot of guys show up that really deep down wanted to be actors. You could see this from their résumé.  I didn’t hire these guys, and their interest in being a driver was to make money, and hopefully, connections that would lead to future acting work. I was smart enough for the most part to avoid this. Then I hired one guy I didn’t think would be interested in other things, and within about a month of hiring him, I discovered he was in a band. He started giving me CDs of his band playing, asking for days off to go play various gigs, and his work just got shoddier and shoddier in so many respects. It became clear to me that he had no interest in what he was doing.

When he wouldn’t show up for work, I’d call a car service. The drivers of the car service were all guys who did this sort of work for their careers, and they were incredibly enthusiastic. They had Internet inside their cars so they could check traffic. They knew all sorts of special routes to take. Their cars were always spic and span. They wore dark suits and always held open the doors for me. Their service was fantastic and many of these guys had been doing the work for 20 years or more. These guys were also very happy. They had interests and could talk about a lot of things. They loved their jobs. They had an almost “instinctual” relationship with the road and understood how to avoid various traffic in certain locations. In a word, they were passionate about their work and in a state of “flow” as far as I could tell. When you were with them, you could tell they were “in the zone” and the drives with them seemed to go faster. The entire experience was just better.

I contrasted this with the guy I hired from the band whose interest was being somewhere else.

Most people in most jobs are interested in being somewhere else.

Then I hired a guy who was from El Salvador. He showed up and had complete enthusiasm for his work. He told the person who interviewed him for me that he wanted nothing more than to be a driver and was incredibly enthusiastic to be working in the United States. A few weeks after I hired him, however, he started asking me the “secret” to my success and all sorts of other questions. He told me this was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to be someone else, and one day, he was going to have a driver like I did. All he spoke about was how he was capable of so much more than simply being a driver. I noticed that he started getting really shoddy about his work, and making a bunch of stupid mistakes. He, too, didn’t really care what he was doing. Then I noticed this same pattern in the next person I hired. This person, too, wanted to be somewhere else, and be doing something else. I heard them on their cell phone talking about starting businesses, doing other things and more.

None of this is to say that the people who are drivers are wrong in wanting to do whatever it is they want to do. But the point is that most people go through life not present in their jobs, feeling a profound sense of lack, and wanting to be and do something else. As a consequence, they never succeed in what they are doing. This sense of lack and a need to be something different ends up permeating their entire lives and controlling them as long as they are alive. There is always something else they need to feel good about themselves–whether it’s a job, title, person, place, or thing. There is just a continual sense of lack.

This is their ego talking to them, and I don’t think it’s productive. I do not think it helps them.

We are not just attached to things. I know people who spend their days and nights driving around from place to place, because they feel like they need a ton of friends in order to be happy. This struggle to meet new people and be popular almost never ends. Others work all the time so they can accumulate material possessions. Others have a cadre of different lovers, hoping for a sense of completeness from each one. People need something outside of themselves and chase after this throughout their lives in order to get a sense of completeness they feel is missing inside them. It is good to have a lot of friends, but there is something wrong when all of your time is consumed by the need to have more and more friends.

One of the most persistent things among most people is our identification of self worth with objects outside of ourselves. This includes not only the material things we possess, such as cars, houses, and other things, but also things like our jobs, our titles, the awards we have received, and where we went to school.  We endow things with a sense of self and our importance and feelings of self worth come from objects outside of ourselves.

In movies, television shows, and other media there is always a character it seems who is a sex addict, drug addict, gambling addict, or alcoholic or has some other disorder. Our culture is obsessed with the addictions of stars and others. One of the most interesting shows to come along in years is the show called “Intervention,” which follows people with various addictions. What is so interesting about all of these cases of addiction is that what most people do with their lives with drugs, sex, gambling, or liquor is the exact same thing that most of us do with our lives: seeking a sense of fulfillment in something outside of ourselves. We watch people on shows like “Intervention” who come close to killing themselves with substances and other addictions, and we cannot help but recognize part of ourselves in them: no matter how much they get of whatever it is they are addicted to, they are never going to be complete and happy. No matter how many titles, wealth, friends–or whatever it is we seek–we will never be happy. We will always seek more and more to make us feel complete.

Most of us are no different than a skid row heroin addict who needs one fix after another. The heroin addict does some heroin, and for a time, feels good. But then he eventually needs to go and find some more. The only difference is that what the heroin addict is seeking causes visible damage to them, whereas what we are seeking is a psychological disorder.

I am continually witnessing society’s desire to find fault with others. My wife subscribes to various magazines such as “Us Weekly,” “People,” and others. Each week, these magazines contain all sorts of incredible gossip stories about this celebrity or that celebrity. The majority of these stories are unflattering.  We read about horrible break ups, public spats, and more. Consider, for example, the public’s fascination with Britney Spears and the things that have happened with her. There are, of course, many such stories. Why are we so fascinated with these things? I think this has to do with the fact that when we hear bad information about others, it makes us feel superior to them. Our self identities are so fragile that just as we seek things outside of ourselves to complete ourselves, we are also obsessed with those we believe have more, or are more than us, being weaker than us on some level. We all do this. We are obsessed as a culture with people who we perceive are above us, suddenly having less.

Several years ago, when my company began to get quite large, I started hearing all sorts of rumors about myself from various employees. There would be rumors of affairs, rumors that I was involved in something illegal, rumors that I’d done this or that. The larger my company grew, the more I started hearing rumors like this. When certain employees got fired, they persisted in spreading these rumors. For a long time, I used to be incredibly upset by these rumors because they seemed to be malicious. I realized, though, after some time what was going on. Most of the people who were involved in spreading such rumors had been fired, or were people who I considered poor employees and I’d let them know I thought this. When I confronted these people, I wounded their egos and how they perceived themselves. Their revenge and way of feeling “complete” again was to find some level of superiority to me in whatever way possible. This meant an interest in rumors and whatever weaknesses I might have. Our interest in other’s weaknesses often adds something to our need to feel complete. We love hearing negative stories about our enemies and people who have made us feel inferior.

When you are in conflict with anyone, it’s usually due to the fact that you have somehow wounded their sense of self or vice versa. On its crudest level, you could injure this person or kill them so you can feel better about yourself and be “complete” (and people do). On another level, you will turn against them and attack them verbally, or undermine them in order to establish your ego and how you feel about yourself. This is something we all do in one sense or another, and it’s something that characterizes most of our lives. We want to be right about various conflicts because if we are right, we somehow feel validated as people. Deep down, we want to feel better than others, and we get this through being right. When we are right and the other person is wrong, we are validated as people.

When I was growing up, my mother used to sit at the kitchen table or on the couch smoking cigarettes and talking on the phone to her friends for hours at a time. All of the conversations would almost invariably revolve around some perceived insult my mother had received, or given, or something that had happened–or vice versa with one of her friends. The entire conversation would go on for hours at a time, and she would either be supporting her friend, or her friend would support her. They would talk and talk, back and forth, until some sort of consensus was reached that my mother was right about something, or her friend was right about something. My mother would feel better. If it was my mother’s ego that was involved, she would then call a few other friends after the conversation to see if they thought she was in the right, too. She would always get their agreement then move on. Other conversations I heard my mother having growing up involved rumors about other friends or bad things that had happened to people they knew. These sorts of conversations dominate our consciousness and what we do because they make us feel better in relation to others and make up for this sense of lack that we constantly seek to fill inside of us.

“Sure she is beautiful, but she is not very intelligent.”
“I wouldn’t want to have the responsibility he does. It would be horrible to be scrutinized all the time.”
“They may appear to be a happy family, but she is really a pill popper and addicted to prescription medications.”
“That was a good performance, but she is also anorexic.”
“They cheat on each other.”
“Oh, he is rich, but he has to work all the time and is really very unhappy.”

On and on and on. How many statements like this have you heard? I have certainly heard a lot of them. Why is it that we need to denigrate others around us? Why is it that our self worth is often tied up in what others do? How can this be explained? We do this because there is a profound sense of emptiness and need for us to feel better than others. This is a collective disease. Religions do this and are well known for it, in fact. Orthodox Jews, for example, feel superior to Jews who are not as observant and do not cover their heads. Extremely Orthodox Jews feel superior to other sorts of Jews who are not as observant. The same can be said for people of most religions.

It’s important that in our lives we get into a state of “flow” where our ego isn’t involved in what we do. We need to be detached from the ego and, instead, just concentrate on what’s before us. I think this is the highest state of being in both our lives and careers. The idea that we are complete and don’t need outside verification in any form in order to feel successful. We don’t need to feel in competition with others.

The people who experience the most problems in their careers are those who are more concerned with being recognized, paid, and getting more and more than being concerned with the work they do. The fact of the matter is once you start down this road, enough will never be enough. An executive who asks for a raise once due to having done something well, will likely ask for a raise a short time later if he does something else right. Pretty soon, this executive will start concentrating on how much others at similar companies make and feel a sense of lack. He will ask for more and more raises then will start looking for another job. He will find a new employer who pays him a better salary then the same process will repeat itself over and over and over again. The executive may settle down at some point, or he may not. Because of this executive’s continual focus on what he lacks, he wastes his energy and never is able to get in a state of “flow” in his job where he could truly reach his potential. His work is shallow and nothing more than something that leads to immediate paychecks, raises, and bonuses. The work cannot possibly ever be the quality that it would be if his ego weren’t involved.

The executive never learns to truly appreciate the work he does. Others in the workplace are viewed as competitors, and not people to cooperate with unless there’s a secondary motive. The ego seeks out only immediate rewards and views others as people to compete with, not work with, unless they can lead to rewards that will enhance the ego. If the employer isn’t viewed as prestigious in the market, the person will feel personally hurt deep down because their ego is tied up in the employer. Their identity is in their employer and they aren’t necessarily one with their work.

I would encourage you in your career to release and get in a state of flow. You need to step back from your ego and realize that no employer and no job can ever fulfill your ego. Your greatest satisfaction in your career and life will come when you are able to be one with your job and what you do. Be in the here and now.

THE LESSON

It is important that you be totally and completely involved in your work. When you do this, you establish a flow where time and problems disappear, and you will find yourself completing tasks with very little effort. Upon entering a state of flow, you can do your work unconcerned with power, competition, or recognition, vastly improving your chances of success. Satisfaction and rewards come when you are one with your work.

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