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I have recently moved into a condominium in Las Vegas and every single day I go down to the gym and exercise. The condo building itself is very large and the units themselves range in price from $100,000 to upwards of $5,000,000. One of the most exciting things about being in this condominium is that there is such a variety of people. It is unlike any other place I have ever been in the world. There are some people in the gym who seem to think they are better than everyone else; there are other people who are huge and whose bodies are covered in tattoos and faces are pierced.
Whether we are talking about my high school gym, the gym in college, or the gym in my new condominium, I have always noticed people who spend more time than everybody else in the gym working out. In fact, if you visit just about any gym, you will find people who spend time every single day perfecting their bodies and getting in the best shape possible. There are always these dedicated individuals who take fitness extremely seriously.
I think a lot of the reason that people take fitness so seriously – it is because they feel they get an immediate response from it. For example, if you work out for an hour on the treadmill, you are going to probably sweat and feel good after your run. Over time if you run enough, you will be more trim and fit. If you lift weights a few times a week, you are going to notice an improvement in your muscles and overall fitness.
I have known many men who, no matter where they go or what they do, are successful. At the same time, I have also known other people who always seem to be unsuccessful, with constant bad luck. In looking around any gym, I can tell you for certain that the cause of success cannot be purely attributed to being in great physical shape. Despite the work they do on their bodies, most of the fittest people you will find at the health club are not among the most successful people. All the exercise in the world is not going to make the average man successful unless his plan is to be a professional athlete. The difference between the most successful men and women out there is not physical, it is mental. It is the mind, not the body that creates the greatest difference between men. It is the mind, not the body, which overcomes obstacles and makes man rise to greatness. It is the mind, not the body, through which the greatest accomplishments come into being.
However, despite the fact that the mind is so important, it is often highly neglected. People will spend their lifetimes working out and exercising in the local gym but at the same time they will:
All of these problems have solutions, which originate from within the mind, not the body. The mind sets us up to either experience happiness or unhappiness in our lives and our careers. The mind is at the center of human experience.
As I write this, I cannot help but think of the world I see around me. I live in Los Angeles a lot of the time and in Los Angeles, appearances are a big deal. So many women get plastic surgery, and people are always trying to look their best. Fitness and appearances are emphasized much more in Los Angeles than in other areas of the country. However, despite the importance of appearances, the mind is what ultimately controls the results that we achieve.
I have been in the real estate business in one form or another since 1997 and one of the businesses I have started within the past few years, involves the rental of ultra expensive beachfront property in Malibu, California. I used to have a very successful business in the student loan industry and for various tax reasons I started putting money into this rental property at that time. I figured that beachfront property could never go down in value. Because this property is so expensive, the people who rent it are generally very famous and at the peak of their careers. I am amazed by how many celebrities and others I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with through this business. People have paid as much as $15,000 a night to rent out some of this property.
About a year ago, I was renting one of these properties for $7,500 a night to a very famous model. Before she arrived, she had a retinue of assistants and others come to the house for a couple of days to make sure it was just the way she liked it. While she was in the house, there were literally hundreds of paparazzi and others camped out trying to get pictures of her. Everything seemed to be working out just fine during her rental until about 12:00 a.m. on the third day. She called me and explained that she was extremely irate because there had been some food in the cupboards. Food is typically cleaned out of the cupboards between rentals but apparently these snacks had been overlooked by everyone, including the model’s assistants.
My immediate reaction was that this phone call was insane. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that since this woman was a famous model, her entire identity had been shaped by her ability to stay thin and look a certain way. She had been very poor prior to being discovered, and when she was discovered, her entire life was changed and she became an international celebrity. Were she to gain weight or to become overweight, she feared she would lose everything. Despite the fact that the woman was carrying on about this, while she could easily have thrown it away, someone rushed over and took the food out of the house. When the person arrived to remove the food, he also discovered a large bag of cocaine and marijuana in the house.
This famous model’s entire life was about her body and appearance. Although she was exceedingly concerned about her body, she was probably not taking good care of her mind. Making a hysterical phone call like that at 12:00 midnight indicated to me that this woman was not managing her mind properly–and as it turns out, she was most likely strung out on some of the cocaine that was discovered in the house. People who are able to manage their appearances are in many cases unable to manage their minds.
For example, Gia Carangi is widely considered the first supermodel. She worked during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was on the covers of numerous magazines and quickly became an international celebrity. However, Carangi became addicted to heroin and after a short while her career rapidly declined. Later, she became infected with AIDS and died at the age of 26:
On March 1, 1980, Carangi’s agent, Wilhelmina Cooper, died of lung cancer. Devastated, Carangi started abusing drugs.[10] Scavullo recalled a fashion shoot in the Caribbean when “She was crying, she couldn’t find her drugs. I literally had to lay her down on her bed until she fell asleep.” By 1980, Carangi began having violent temper tantrums, walking out of photo shoots, and even falling asleep in front of the camera. In the November 1980 issue of Vogue, Carangi’s track marks from shooting heroin were visible even after airbrushing.[11] For three weeks, she was signed with Eileen Ford, who soon dropped her.
Her attempt to quit drugs was shattered when she learned that her good friend and fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim died in a car accident. According to the Stephen Fried book Thing of Beauty, Carangi locked herself in a bathroom for hours, shooting heroin.[12] In the fall of 1981, she looked far different from the top model she once had been. However, she was still determined to make a comeback in the fashion industry. She contacted Monique Pillard (who was largely responsible for Janice Dickinson’s career), who was hesitant to sign her.
In rehab, she told staff that she had done sexual favors for drug money and had been raped by a dealer. And she went home to her girlfriends crying.[2]
Once heavily pursuing modeling again, Carangi received the harsh treatment she had been able to avoid last time. Nobody would book her. Desperate, she turned to Scavullo. She landed a Cosmopolitan cover, a gift from Scavullo.[2] Shot in the winter of 1982, it would be her last cover.[2]
Carangi was diagnosed with AIDS, which was a newly recognized disease at the time. As her condition worsened, she was transferred to Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University Hospital. Her mother stayed with her day and night, allowing virtually no visitors.[13]
On November 18, 1986 at 10 a.m., Carangi died of AIDS-related complications. She was 26 years old.[14] Her closed-casket funeral (recommended by the funeral director due to the ravages of AIDS) was held on November 21 at a small funeral home in Philadelphia. Nobody from the fashion world attended.[2] However, weeks later, Scavullo sent a Mass card when he heard the news.
Cindy Crawford is widely thought of as the one who replaced Gia Carangi after her death. Crawford was known as “Baby Gia” for her resemblance to Carangi. What was so appealing about Crawford is that she had the look of Carangi but without the drama or drugs. Crawford had been the valedictorian of her high school, and won an academic scholarship to Northwestern University to pursue the study of chemical engineering. A large part of Crawford’s appeal was her ability to control her mind and to be predictable. People liked Crawford and enjoyed working with her because she was not out of control like Carangi was.
Even in a career that is all about physical appearances, like modeling, the ability to control one’s mind is still incredibly important. The success of Crawford, according to most accounts, had to do with her ability to control her own mind, and to act with mental stability. The failure of Carangi, in contrast, had to do with her inability to control her own mind. Carangi’s unstable mental state led to a series of bad choices, which eventually destroyed her once hopeful career.
You need to pay attention to your mind and how you operate it. Just as people pay attention to their bodies, image, and so forth to get the results that they want, so you too should pay attention to your mind in order to obtain the desired results. Your mind in a very real sense controls everything that is happening around you.
When you look at conflicts and wars, they generally arise as a result of how different people are running their minds. When you see people who get to great positions of power, they are generally there due to how they are running their minds. When you see people who are peaceful and happy, this is also generally related to how they are running their minds.
My point is not to tell you how to run your mind. What I do know, however, is that successfully running your mind is going to lead to your success. If you were to spend 30 minutes a day working on your mind (as many people do exercising), you would find yourself becoming more and more successful. Every experience you have in your life is a result of the attitudes you hold in your mind. Look around you. Where you are right now and the conditions you find yourself in, are all a result of what you are doing with your mind. The mind needs to be run and organized with priority.
For me personally, nothing is more important than managing my mind. I meditate at least once a day. I do my best to avoid and to not socialize with unhappy people. I try to avoid reading negative information or watching programming that is likely to upset me. I am constantly setting goals to improve my life and what I am doing. I always try to be positive and to move forward–not backward.
For example, I used to enjoy watching the television show Intervention, about drug addicts and so forth, undergoing surprise family interventions. However, I realized that this show was making me depressed when people would relapse or die during some of the various episodes. Watching this stuff did not do my mind any good.
Your mind is where the real results happen. Nothing is more important than taking care of your mind.
In the entertainment and modeling industry, appearances are everything but the mind ultimately still plays a huge role in the pursuit of success. Lawyers are judged by the quality of their arguments. Doctors are judged by what they do with their mind. Authors are judged by what they do with their mind. A monk may meditate for five hours a day. A nun or a priest may pray. Mormons do not drink coffee or use alcohol because the Founder of the religion, Joseph Smith, believed that these substances made people less spiritual and polluted the mind.
There are two components to how we succeed in the world: Physical and mental/spiritual. Both of these attributes are extremely important, and to a large extent they control our existence. Nevertheless, how we manage these two aspects of our lives will ultimately determine our ultimate success or failure in any undertaking.
In considering my life and the people I have worked with, one of the things that stands out most for me about people is how they use their minds.
THE LESSON
Successful people manage their minds well; your mindset is the prime determining factor in anything and everything that happens to you. Just as you strive to become and stay physically fit, you must ensure that your mind is stable and moving in the direction of your goals in order to achieve happiness.
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.
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Do not be distracted by your insecurities and doubts, or you will never achieve success because you will not allow it to happen. Focus only on the message about your skills and capabilities. Identify your goals and create a gameplan, and fill your mind with positive and hopeful messages that will drive you towards said goal.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
In this article Harrison discusses how people who stand for something always do better than those who do not. Companies who stand for something always do better than companies who do not. The most successful companies not only stand for something, but they are completely consistent with their core principles. This is what keeps them going and this is what makes them successful. One of the largest problems that people have in their careers is when they diverge from what they are good at. When you do not stand for something, you divert from your true strength. Everything begins to crumble and slowly fall apart when you are not doing something that you are really good at. The biggest success comes when you stand for something and are good at it.
Companies necessarily seek to employ positive, forward-minded people. A firm’s success depends on their employees, and they seek people who will enhance them rather than merely contribute to the bottom line. People with positive natures, who contribute to a healthy social environment, prove essential to the growth and success of their employers.
In this article Harrison discusses that the meaning you give to things will control the quality of your life. How we feel about ourselves is all due to what we tell ourselves certain things will mean. The meaning you give things is crucial for your career success. You need to choose meanings that make you stronger. You need to ensure you interpret things in a way that serves you and does not hurt you. You need to reach your full potential. Don’t classify yourself as someone who is not fit to succeed at the level at which you’re capable. You need to take charge of your mind to have the career and the life that you deserve.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of ‘energy’ over technical skills. When people are hiring you they are purchasing your “energy” more than they are purchasing your technical skills. They are interested in your ability to influence the world around you through your energy. When you are marketing yourself and seeking a job, or working in a job, there are essentially two things you are marketing. You are marketing your technical skills, but more importantly you are marketing an intangible sort of energy. The most successful people have mastered the art of projecting positive energy. The better your energy, the more employable you will be and the farther you will go.
You can never become too comfortable if you wish to be successful. Your success will largely depend on your ability to become dissatisfied with your current position. Successful people are never satisfied with the status quo, and constantly push beyond their comfort zone. When do you this and succeed, you set a new standard for normality in your life. Be continually dissatisfied, and always pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
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.
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You make some good points. Unfortunately, our society is so “cosmetic.” We want things we can show off, like cars, houses, and our LOOKS. The mind is not so easy to show off to people and, if you try, people think you’re being pompous.
Unhappiness and misfortunes are part of life much as love, happiness and joy are. People mistake misfortune and grief as things that can be avoided; they cannot because these things happen no matter how well you plan your life. The point is to try your best.
In fact, I believe that bad things happen in order for God to show his goodness. For example, if Jesus had not been crucified and killed, he could not have risen from the dead as He did. Consequently, something bad had to happen (His crucifixion) in order for something glorious to happen (His resurrection)–and the belief in same 2000 years later by the majority of the 6 billion people in the world.
Further, I am reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, ‘The Man in the Arena’:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
My point is that you cannot always avoid grief or unpleasantness, so accept it, persevere, and enjoy the challenge and opportunity to prevail under difficult circumstances–where others won’t dare. Be the person in the arena. If you fail, at least you know you tried.
“Rate the task above the prize; will not the mind be raised? Fight thine own faults, not the faults of others; will not evil be mended?” Confucius
“To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.” William James
we make fist impression by physical (how one looks) and then
decide if I want to interact with him, only then second aspect comes
mental.
so both attitude are important, mental for long run.
I wonder, in such a busy life, how to get time for these all
as I have tried earlier but not able to continue for long time
Great article. I’d love more ideas on how to give your mind a workout (e.g., meditation).
Very nice read. your point is so obvious yet so many fail to see it.
All the best,
john