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When I was about 16 years old, I purchased a book that was a translation of old Buddhist teachings and Zen tales. I lost track of this book long ago; however, much of its content was quite memorable. I remember one simple story in particular that had an interesting message, which was very different from every other tale in the book. The story went like this:
There existed a man who lived alone and worked at a train station as a ticket taker.
He woke up at the same time each day to go to his job.
He took his lunch break at the same time each day.
He walked home at the same time each day.
He enjoyed his work and had been doing the same job for 30 years.
He did not earn very much money, so he brought his lunch with him to work and always walked everywhere he went.
He meditated for a few hours on the same prayers each evening.
This man was blessed and had found Nirvana in his life.
He was always content.
He was the happiest and most balanced man there had ever been.
I thought about this story and its implications often once I had read it, because the message was so different from every other message in the book. It also did not seem to make a lot of sense:
I asked myself these questions over and over again. I love books and I enjoy rereading those I have already read from time to time. I picked this book up several times throughout the years and each time I did so, I asked myself the same questions about this little Buddhist tale. I could not understand how this man could possibly have found Nirvana with his life as it had been described.
I have relocated to Las Vegas recently and am here with my wife and daughter. Our evenings are spent walking through casinos to various restaurants. There is really good food here, and we have been having an excellent time in all respects. One thing that is really interesting about being here in Las Vegas, though, is seeing the advertising campaigns all around us. There is a new advertising campaign in Las Vegas that has pictures of people going crazy and having a lot of fun. The text of the ad says something like: “BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU’LL BE DEAD. THAT’S WHY!”
It is a very effective advertising campaign. The point it is making is actually very similar to that of the Buddhist story about the man working in the train station: We should not spend our lives living according to the standards of others. In a very real sense, when you live your life according to the standards of others, you are likely to be unhappy.
This is a very powerful message. Most people live their lives according to what other people think, and as a result they are miserable. When you live your life according to your own standards and not that of others, you are likely to experience a far different and more fulfilling life.
The man in the train station could have spent his career worrying that his job was not good enough, that he should be making more money, that he should not have to walk, that he should get a promotion, that things should be different. But instead, as the tale tells us, he had actually attained a state of Nirvana, meaning he was incredibly happy and fulfilled in all respects.
In the Western world and in most cultures we would say there is something wrong with this man. We would say that he had no business being so happy because he is (1) alone, (2) poor, (3) not getting ahead, and (4) doing a job he does not like. How could this man’s life possibly represent “nirvana” when so much is wrong according to our standards?
When I was around 19 years old, I had a summer job as a garbage man. I spent my days riding around with different drivers, collecting the trash. I made friends with one of the drivers, a man in his late 30s, and one day he told me that he had been planning on killing himself for months but never got the courage to go through with it. He had a wife and two small children if I remember correctly.
“Why on earth would you kill yourself?” I asked.
“Because I am a garbage man,” he said. “This is probably the worst job anyone could possibly have.”
I understood where he was coming from, in terms of a societal point of view: Many people are under the impression and believe that being a garbage man is one of the lowest jobs anyone can have. However, in reality this man’s job was not all that bad. At the time (during the 1980s) the garbage men in the area were unionized, and most of them made over $50,000 a year. Not only did this man have a job, he had a job that paid pretty well and had many great benefits, including a pension. His job was well above average compared to many other jobs out there. Nevertheless, this particular man had decided, for whatever reason, that he had no reason to be happy in his life. In fact, he had decided that the outside perception of what he was doing was so horrible that he should end his life.
Many people spend the majority of their time worrying and feeling as if they are not well suited to be happy in life. Moreover, they spend their time concerned about what other people think instead of caring most about whether or not they are actually happy. Most of us are concerned about others’ impressions and not our own.
On Friday night, my wife and I went to the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas for dinner. We walked into an FAO Schwartz, and my two-year-old daughter picked out a book called Elmer, by David McKee. I had no idea what the book was about, but my daughter seemed pretty excited about it, so I decided to buy it for her. When we went to the cash register the girl working behind the counter said: “I love this book. It is my most favorite book and definitely the best book in the store. I have read it hundreds of times.”
The girl behind the cash register was obese and I also got the impression she might be a lesbian. She seemed very happy in all respects.
“What is the book about?” I asked.
“It is about an elephant who has different colors than other elephants. The elephant has to learn to live with different colors and be accepted for being different.”
What is so important about this little lesson is the idea of being different and the fact that it is okay. We do not need to live according to the expectations of others. We can be happy being different from society’s norms, as there is nothing wrong with being different at all.
Whether someone is a different race from other people, a different sexual orientation from other people, doing a non-prestigious job, living in the “wrong” area, overweight or overly thin–that person still is entitled to feel good about himself or herself and to experience Nirvana. We experience this level of happiness and fulfillment only when we learn to live without basing our happiness on the expectations and judgments of others. We simply choose to live according to our own expectations of what we want to be and who we want to be.
So few people are happy in any job they have because they always feel as if they should be someone or somewhere else. They want to have a different life, to be another person and to have another job. They are not satisfied with who they are.
I am in the property business as well as the career business, and in this work, I often interview different people to do things for me such as maintain various properties. For example, one of the jobs I have for people is that of a full-time gardener. Every time I interview gardeners, I get TONS of applications from people who are unemployed in other professions, including sound engineers in studios, actors, and others. I have interviewed several of these types throughout the years. They typically show up to the interview and say something like this: “This is not what I want to do, but I am willing to do it until I get my next acting job.”
What the F*&^? This is what I am always asking myself. What employer in their right mind would hire someone who is “willing to do the job” but does not really want the job? Such persons will never be happy doing the job and will never enjoy what they are doing; therefore they probably will not do very good work. You need to be completely enthusiastic about whatever it is you are doing and choose to love it. No one in his right mind would hire someone who is doing something for the short term and does not really want to do it. Broadcasting those kinds of halfhearted intentions is simply bad for business.
About a month ago, I went with my wife to her high school reunion. She went to a very competitive, small private school in Los Angeles, incidentally where Paris Hilton and a lot of other famous kids also went. In addition, most of the kids from her class became lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, and other high-profile professions (my wife is a lawyer too). Most of the kids also went to schools like Stanford and so forth. The people I met were all really nice and seemed pretty down to earth, despite their great pedigrees and extremely obvious competitive natures.
My wife and I were getting ready to leave, when a guy who had graduated from my wife’s school around 10 years before she did, came up to us. He was dressed poorly compared to the other people (wearing jeans and a T-shirt–not a suit like the other men), and he also seemed a bit happier and less concerned. He handed me a card and I could scarcely believe it. He was not a doctor, lawyer, or anything of the sort but worked in a surf shop in Malibu. He had found a good job and a happy life working in a surf shop, nothing more and nothing less. This seemed incredible to me; here this guy was, surrounded by all these professional sorts of classmates–but it was true. I was incredibly impressed with him, more so than all of the other attendees.
What is so special about the man working in the train station? What is the message here that the book is trying to tell us? I think the real message is that people can be incredibly happy when they can just do their job and stop worrying about the outside influences and what others think. There is nothing wrong with working at whatever job you are doing. There is nothing wrong with not making as much money as the next guy. There is nothing wrong with not being perceived as being in a prestigious profession by others.
People can never be happy when they are concerned with what others are thinking and doing, or what others think of them. Most of us seem to be doing everything we can to move toward others’ ideas of perfection, and in the process we deny ourselves our own happiness. There is something very wrong and wholly unnatural about going through life not feeling good about your profession or whatever it is that you do–all due to others.
There is incredible value in being content and happy with yourself, wherever and whoever you are.
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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Tagged: apply for a job, career advice, content value, job search, job search guru | a harrison barnes, job search industry, legal jobs, legal profession, memorable contents, natural happiness
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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.
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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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I am The Happiest Person I Know. Why?
Mainly because I don’t care what other people think of me.
I live my life according to my rules, being very happy with who I am.
I have a girlfriend who, when she meets you, looks you up and down, checking that your wardrobe matches, shoes are clean etc. I recently noticed her ten year old daughter doing the same thing. I pity these people who are so conscious of appearances. I wonder how many new houses they’ll have to build and how expensive their cars will have to become before they realize these things bear absolutely no relation to happiness.
Glad someone out there gets it!
Live Life Happy!
Great post. In fact, I love every single blog post you have!
A side question: I too think Las Vegas is full of potential. But, how do you manage your business (which I believe is in LA) while you live in Vegas? Do you commute back and forth? I’d love to hear your story about how you decide to move to Vegas and how you continue to run your various businesses remotely.
Excellent write up. Exactly what I needed to hear right now. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much for this inspiring article! I think so many of us feel locked into a law firm job after law school because that is what “everyone thinks we should be doing”. I feel so much pressure from everyone around me-family, academic peers, work colleagues-to stick with something I don’t really enjoy doing. I really appreciate your article and its candor. Thank you for pointing out that the best happiness comes from the standards within, not from meeting the standards of others!
i find it interesting that in European countries they don’t seem to have the same level of self-loathing about being a garbage man or baker or something that we might consider “lowly” in the US. I’ve always been a little curious why. Perhaps due to the lack of ability to move between social classes, or perhaps for some other societal reason. I’ve been fascinated with this for a while. Also it seems not unusual to find a bus driver or garbageman that might want to go to the symphony or the opera where here you probably couldn’t give away the tickets to your garbageman.
More recently I’ve been surprised by the number of young people I meet at church, etc. wanting to go into law. It seems to be the great middle class myth, the “road to wealth” in the eyes of the middle class. While law is a good profession, you can’t help but look at them and ask if they knew there were easier ways to make money. Perhaps it’s a reflection on the increasingly byzantine nature of our legal system that you have to be in the game to get ahead, I’m not sure, but I don’t think they are going to be happy in 10 years.
This is a fascinating subject at any rate, thanks for the post.
I am always amazed by the simple logic and sensitivity displayed by your articles. Your writings demonstrate an ability to flush out the obvious which is generally overlooked by people. It causes pause and self-reflection. I had no idea who you were until I accidently stumbled upon a video setting forth again a common sense approach in determining what your passion is and ultimately building the nexus for a potential career change or realizing you love what you do. To me, it is all about making a difference. You unequivocally are a champion in that field.
I am not certain whether your central motivation is marketing your products or making a difference. I do know the effect and positive results you achieve. I consider your writings a gift to which I say thank you.
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