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Several years ago a long-term relationship I was in ended and I felt absolutely terrible: the person I was with could not stop fraternizing with other men. At least a few times a week, she would be out with a different man and say it was related to work. We lived together and she would come home late – sometimes she would make excuses that she was staying with friends and would not come home at all. Eventually, I was so angry about this all the time that the relationship ended.
One of her male friends had ties to organized crime. He operated check cashing businesses and all sorts of dubious loan sharking-type of businesses in Las Vegas. He commuted back and forth in a private jet between a mansion he had purchased on the beach in Malibu and Las Vegas.
One night, she didn’t come home. As the hours ticked by that evening, I remember first being worried, then angry, then confused, then angry. She finally called me at 11:30 and told me she wasn’t coming home that night. “What the F@*&!?” I screamed at her. I was very upset. I felt jilted, upset and let my feelings out.
“If you talk to me like that again I am going to ‘call Vegas’ and have you taken out,” she said. She then hung up. She was serious. She was literally threatening to have me killed by someone I knew could have me killed.
When the relationship ended, I was very upset. I bought some books about how to repair relationships. I started going to religious services. I bought some religious books and followed the advice they had to offer. I moped around and felt pretty awful. There were a few days I did not go to work. One day I set up a lawn chair in the driveway of my small house and sat there all day – I didn’t move or get up. When it got dark, I went inside with a horrible sunburn.
I realize now that one of the most important things in life is to understand where others are coming from.
When you understand the psychology of others, it puts everything in perspective.
When you put everything in perspective, you can live a far better life.
Most of us – myself included—are far too concerned with ourselves, our egos and our needs—to step outside of ourselves and look at the way the world really works: Our view of the world is often driven by the fears, insecurities, and issues that other people have.
My ex was a beautiful and accomplished woman in many respects. Despite all of this, she had a brutal childhood which I never quite understood. Something had happened in her teens which caused her to suddenly stop speaking with her father – and her mother divorced her father. I asked her sister about it once. The sister was standing outside on a freezing cold night chain smoking.
“She’s going to have to tell you what happened,” she said. She took a deep hit of her cigarette and stared blankly into the cold night. “It’s too personal for me to tell you.”
As a teen, my ex had been sent away for a short time to a summer camp for troubled teens because she had been cutting herself with knives. I never understood what that was about.
I never put any of this in perspective. Because I was young, I was focused on her beauty, how she made me look and, well, sex. I was unable to see her real self and what was going on with her.
Before I settled down with her for a time, she had really seemed to thrive on men’s attention. I never understood quite why she thrived on getting attention from so many men. When I met her, I thought that her numerous dates meant she was happy and free. It was only later that I realized something was terribly wrong.
After the break up, she stopped by my house one afternoon. I was surprised to see her. She told me that in the few months since we had broken up, she had dated some 30 men – and found one guy that she liked. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.
As I listened to this, we were sitting outdoors at the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, California. It was 12:00 noon and she was on her second margarita. She wore sunglasses but pain was visible in her face. What I realized at that moment – and something that I had not realized in all of my weeks of soul searching following the breakup—was that she was seeing all these men and seeking out wealthy and powerful men because she felt dead and worthless inside. She needed to be connected to someone important to feel important.
I realized I bore a lot of responsibility for the crummy way I felt. It was partially my fault because I chose her. There would never be anything I could do to change her— she was the way she was no matter how much I loved her, no matter how good I was to her. Her demons would haunt every relationship she ever went into.
I was just as guilty as she was. I had chosen her for the wrong reasons. I had allowed myself to be emotionally abused and tolerated it. I continued to play the game and watch – long after a much more emotionally mature and secure man would have called it quits.
When you look around at your friends and the people in your life, what you see is a reflection of you. If you are insecure, you will surround yourself with people like you. If you are a junkie you will be around junkies. If you are vain, you will be around people who are vain.
I once heard a story about a man who had a dog known as the Dog of America. This golden retriever dog was incredible:
Because this dog was so remarkable, the man who owned it thought that he could teach the dog to sing. For months, he hummed and tried his best to get the dog to sing. He told everyone he knew that the dog would soon sing.
As the months went by, the man became increasingly angry. He was furious that the dog would not sing. He constantly yelled at the dog for not singing and then he fell into a deep depression. He then tried harder and harder to make the dog sing, but the dog wouldn’t.
“Who’s crazy?” the man who first told me the story asked. “The man or the dog?”
Something people do not understand about their careers and the lives they lead is that you are rarely going to change people, or the institutions you work in.
Early in my legal career, something emerged called the Greedy Associates Boards. These were boards where young attorneys congregated online and, for the most part, said negative things about the law firms they were working for. They complained about the hours, the salaries, the bonuses and more.
I never had any interest in participating in these sorts of boards. What I wondered, though, was why all of these people were practicing law and working if they hated it so much? All of their complaints were not going to change anything. Law firms are institutions that have been around for hundreds of years. They operate on the billable hour and are profitable based on the number of hours their employees work. Complaining about this will never change how they operate.
Many people go into various jobs, professions and relationships without understanding the “nature of the beast” they are getting involved with.
When I got involved with the woman, I knew her nature – but made the mistake of getting involved anyway.
When a man tries to train a dog to speak – he knows its nature and that it does not speak.
When someone takes a job in a law firm – they know its nature.
One of the more unusual aspects of human psychology is that many people fail to understand the nature of the people, environments and jobs they become involved with. The most important thing you can do is understand the nature of what you get involved with, and accept that it will define you.
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
Filed Under : Featured, Getting Ahead, Life Lessons
Tagged: break up, human nature, human psychology, jobs, law jobs, relationships
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Resourcefulness can make you better at everything you do, and separates the truly extraordinary people from the general herd. Do everything within your power to be resourceful in your job search, life, and career to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, and learn how to employ the resources currently at your disposal for maximum impact.
The most successful people in the world share the common characteristic of sharing, or concentrating on the value that they give back to others rather than on their own growth and profit. Focusing on yourself never leads to long-term success, but leads instead to unhappiness as well as emotional and financial challenges. Your greatest consideration, therefore, should be how you can contribute to others, and how your actions can impact their lives.
The best way to attain your goal is through small, incremental steps on which you can build. Establish a routine, and make sure you are consistently working towards some kind of goal. Start small, and always build upon what you have done before. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they believe everything should happen quickly and at the same time, instead of progressively building upon their past achievements.
Make sure that you are involved in groups that focus on positive things. Your success in life depends on your ability to focus on the outcomes you want, and the focus of the groups with which you associate will in turn shape your own focus. You must endeavor to always choose groups with a positive focus.
Everything you do is a form of preparation for your job interviews, as you are always under some form of scrutiny. The best employees can always spot other good employees, and you cannot “fake it”; merely doing a good job in your work is a form of interview preparation. Always put your all into your work, therefore, even if you do not have long-term plans to remain at your current employment. Switch jobs as infrequently as possible. The time to prepare for a job search is before you even realize that you need to do so.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.
You can change your life forever by harnessing the power of persistence. Think about the people in your life, and whether they empower you or hinder you in achieving your goals. You must win at all costs, and persist until you succeed.
You need to provide people what they want, otherwise you will not have a job. Although they might not always be the most desirable kinds of jobs, certain jobs always exist because they provide services that people will always require. The only secret to continual employment is to provide a service that people always need; if you do this, and nothing else, you will always find yourself employed. Give people what they want.
Your ability to help people will determine the extent of your success; the more powerful and effective your help, the greater rewards you will receive. One of the rarest and most profound achievements is to follow through on your goals and create a paradigm-shifting idea. The more revolutionary your work, the more people you will affect and the more memorable of a career you will have.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
The ability to fit into your work environment is among the most important parts of obtaining and retaining a job, even more so than your skill level. Fitting in means nothing more than being comfortable in one’s work environment, and making others similarly comfortable. Employers want to hire people who will embrace their approach to business and the world on physical and moral levels, so you must strive to fit in with their worldview.
Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.
In this article, Harrison advises you to live the lives you wish to have, do the jobs you want to do, and basically live your dreams to your best possible ability. Life is fleeting and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So Harrison puts forward certain questions – when are you going to start living the life you want and when are you going to take charge of your life. The time to have the career you want is right now, not tomorrow, and not later. You need to take charge of your career and life and no one else is going to do it for you. Your entire life and the quality of it is a product of your decisions. You can have, do, or be anything you want. Do not create alibis for making comprises in life. What separates the best and the happiest people is the ability to stop to making excuses and Harrison wants you to be this person.
Anyone can be up when things are going well, but the real challenge comes when things are not. Do not look at problems, which are inevitable for any person or business, in a negative light; think of them instead as challenges, lessons, or opportunities. There is a silver lining to be found in every problem, and finding that silver lining will enable you to grow.
Understanding what you do for a living is very important for your career. You should understand the generality of your specific profession. You and your career are a product. You need to know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible. You need to be relevant and understand the skills you are offering. Being a relevant product is essential for your success. It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve. Being relevant is more than just getting a job. Being relevant also relates to serving the employers with the skills they need. You need to understand your market and what your customers want. This is the way to stay employed, and it is also the means to continual improvement.
Things will not always go the way that you want them to go, so you must not be discouraged by adversity in your job hunt. When you persist and consistently put forth your best effort, things are much more likely to go in your favor. Also, you must resist others’ efforts to undermine your efforts and potential; focus instead on doing everything in your power to fight on and complete the task at hand.
Having a goal or vision will propel you towards greater career success and happiness. Without a purpose, you will find yourself depressed and ultimately fail to achieve your goals. Do not subscribe to the unrealistic problem that you should never have problems, but instead regard problems as part of your overall growth strategy.
Don’t ever give up, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Take chances and invest in your best skills, and persist in the face of unfortunate events. Have faith in your considerable work and capabilities, and use them to create value for others.
In this article Harrison discusses what a good hiring manager should look for. Many people who make hiring decisions really do not know what they are doing. In fact, they often make mistakes when hiring. They put too much emphasis on skills and experience. But the single most important aspect of hiring is evaluating the person’s unique outlook on the world. If the person does not have a positive outlook on the world, he/she will bring down the morale of the other workers. The person will harm the company through the negative outlook. The key to success is having the power to stick it out in jobs and finding happiness wherever you are. Hiring people who do good work and are always able to find happiness should be the number one objective of hiring managers.
To reach the goals to which you aspire, you must compare yourself with people superior to you for motivation. Most people prefer to look at life the way they wish it to be, rather than as it truly is. Move out of your comfort zones and face reality. Don’t seek out or compare yourself with the average people around you, as doing so will only mire you in mediocrity rather than push you forward.
You can better market yourself by taking a stand against something. Peoples’ personal beliefs, including the things with which they do not agree, define who they are as people. Standing against something differentiates you from the crowd; when done in the correct manner, without disrespecting others’ opinions, such a stance can help you land your dream job.
Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
Determine whether you are a global or specific person. Most people are either too general or too specific in the way they treat information, and overly detail-oriented people risk losing sight of the bigger picture. General people are more comfortable in managerial positions, while detail-oriented people prefer everything to conform to a logical sequence. Understand which sort of person you are, and seek work that best harnesses your natural inclination.
In this article Harrison talks about releasing the lack that you feel, in order to reach your full potential. If a sense of lack dominates your thinking, it will affect your interaction with the world and how the world sees you. There are many areas of your life where you are coming from a position of lack. Your ability to release this lack and go forward with your life can create a tremendous sense of peace and more natural accomplishments in your world. The amount of lack that people see out there is profound and it has a massive impact on their lives. According to Harrison, the most successful people in the world see the world as a place of opportunity and not lack.
When faced with difficult times, you must develop the ability to transcend the trouble around you instead of giving up or assuming that nothing can be done about your situation. Keep your wits about you and take charge of the situation, and you will find yourself on track for constant improvement and career success.
It is extremely important that you enjoy your job. Most people find themselves in jobs that they resent, and eventually make this resentment known by appearing disinterested and distracted. Success comes from being engaged in and grateful for your work. You can define your job according to your own vision; you can either choose to engage with your work, or avoid and despise what you do. People recognize and appreciate those who are enthusiastic about their work.
Your résumé is an extremely important document. There are entire books written about how to craft them. I have written at least one myself. There are scores of résumé consultants, companies, and others that will work on your résumé for a fee. Hiring one of these services can be useful and can improve your résumé. Nevertheless, most résumés can improve dramatically by following the below advice.
In this article Harrison explains how you can do better in your career by selling. The most successful people are absolute masters at sales. Selling is among the most important career skills you can have. When you know how to sell something you can do exceptionally well wherever you go. Knowing how to sell something is a key to survival, advancement, fame, and fortune. Everything we do is about making a sale. Selling yourself is about showing others the value you can bring them. So package yourself to the best of your ability, always be at your best and sell yourself. Develop your sales skills and do not be afraid to sell anything. Whatever your goal in life, becoming an effective salesman will help you achieve it.
It is absolutely vital to be in control of your life and career. When you fail to control your life, someone else will step in to do so and fit your life into their plans. Understand that it is in others’ interests to establish control over your life and work, and instead exert control yourself over your life and the events around you.
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Harrison, I am both sorry and elated that you feel pain and the freedom that it can deliver. Yours is a riveting story of a dashed hope. Yet, I believe in hope. It is an energy, in itself. May I suggest you give hope another chance? This time, let that hope seed itself in the fertile grounds of knowing you are a good and decent soul. I’ve seen such hope. I’ve learned that it does, in fact, grow to manifest in realized dreams, expanded awareness, and love.
I find your heartfelt words carry much harmony. I am certain that many others, including myself, sing with you.
If you ever need “a guy” to talk with, I’m always here at carl@windshippublishing.com.