Featured
View Count: 2668
I have kept a journal for years. Today I opened the journal and found a quote that I had written down on July 4, 2002. I had written this quote down because at the time I had just gotten out of a relationship in which the person I was with had decided that I could do absolutely nothing right whatsoever. At that time I was reading a self-help book about recovering from bad relationships, and this particular quote had really hit me with tremendous gusto, because I believed it really described what I had been going through. I was sitting in my backyard in the afternoon after the breakup, feeling quite depressed but still looking hard for answers. When we are in the eye of the storm, we often do not realize it until someone tells us we are.
Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious–or both–but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child’s self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy–unworthy of respect, friendship, and the natural right of all: love and protection.
Inevitably, victims are made to feel guilty–made to believe the abuse they suffer is their own fault.
No one ever has the right to abuse you, whether you are a child or an adult.
Everyone deserves someone to be crazy about them–to nurture them.
–Unknown
What stuck out for me so much about this quote was that I had been told how awful I was for years. In the relationship I was in, I was told I would never be a good businessperson, never be worthy of respect in the world, never be a good father, and never be a good husband. These kinds of messages have the tendency to be self-reinforcing because the more we hear negative information about ourselves, the more we tend to believe it. I can remember that when I was in this relationship, all I wanted to do was escape emotionally and physically. Were I still in this relationship, you might find me as one of those lonely men who sit on a bar stool night after night somewhere. I’ll bet many of the men who crowd bar stools all over are emotionally abused. Somewhere in the backgrounds of many unhappy and unsuccessful people is some kind of emotional abuse–and it is probably ongoing in their lives.
The reason I am sharing such deeply personal information with you is that in some respects you yourself might be emotionally abused, and I want to offer you insight and support. You might be, or you might have been emotionally abused in a relationship, by a parent or relative, or by an employer. Someone around you, or some group around you, might be telling you that you are negative and incapable. For whatever reason, you may be led to believe that you are incompetent and unworthy. When I think about emotional abuse, I also think about our jobs and what many people experience in certain jobs. Many people simply are not appreciated in their jobs. They are told that they are doing a bad job, they are threatened constantly with termination, they are made fun, of and they are systematically passed up for promotions. As a result, they feel a constant sense of inferiority in their jobs.
There is so much happiness and success available for the taking in the world that whenever I see people extraordinarily unhappy with their lives and unappreciated, I want nothing more than to intervene with knowledge and guidance. In my life, once I got out of that abusive relationship, everything miraculously changed. I started excelling in my job. I became happier. My relationships with everyone around me suddenly became fulfilling. I met a wonderful woman who became my wife, and today I am living the life of my dreams. This all came from spending the majority of my time with someone who believed in me and supported me, instead of someone who was fighting against my dreams and me.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your emotional and psychological health is quit a job. People who are abused and not valued by their employers should seek other jobs. Criticism can achieve a useful purpose and can motivate you to improve. However, there are also circumstances under which individual employees of various businesses are so severely and commonly abused that it rises to an extremely unhealthy level. In these cases, the criticism actually serves to diminish the employees and it makes them feel as if they are not worthy of their job.
When you read stories about employees going on rampages, the story is usually about an employee who was systematically abused and was made to feel inferior by the employer. One of the reasons we often hear about this in places like post offices is that the employees there feel trapped, and they feel as if they have skills that would simply not be valued elsewhere. Given the good-size pensions postal employees receive and the fact that the pay is not that bad, postal employees often feel trapped in their jobs. If you had delivered letters for the past 15 years, what else would you feel qualified to do? If you are ever in a situation in which you feel trapped or abused, the best thing you can do is look for another job. No one should remain in a job or position wherein they are demoralized and feel inferior.
Whoever you are and whatever you do, you have skills and personality traits that are in demand somewhere. You need to do everything within your power to take advantage of these skills and traits, and to put yourself in a situation wherein you will be appreciated. You have skills and abilities that merit profound appreciation. You just need to be working for an employer that realizes this. The more positive news and affirmations that you receive, the better you will typically become at your job.
About a year ago I was at a conference and spent some time with a man who had apparently lost more than 50 pounds during the previous year, had quit drinking on a daily basis, had stopped taking stimulants on a daily basis, and had gone from emotionally withdrawn to incredibly happy and motivated. Since I did not know the person as he was before I met him, I was very curious:
“How on earth did you do this?” I asked him.
“I decided whom to spend my time with and whom not to spend my time with,” he told me.
When I thought about this statement, I realized that it was no different from the experience I had years earlier. People’s negative opinions of the world and about us can have a profoundly negative influence on our lives. This is especially so when we are not appreciated and loved.
Several years ago, I was working inside of a law firm and there was another attorney who had been there for at least 10 years. I could not figure out why the law firm had kept him around so long–or why he had stayed. All anyone did was talk about how stupid this guy was and constantly make fun of him. The associates who had just gotten out of law school even talked about how stupid he was and made fun of him. The partners did the same thing. Despite the fact that the law firm was going through what seemed to be a full-time downsizing of laying people off and firing them, this guy was never let go. Incredibly, despite mergers and other events at this law firm, and countless firings, he is still there today. I figure that the law firm must just enjoy keeping him around to harass. In actuality, this attorney is not that bad at his job. He is, however, someone who has tolerated incredible abuse throughout his career.
What makes this so incredible is that this particular guy was earning (10 years ago) probably more than $250,000 a year. He has since been promoted, and despite all the abuse he has suffered, he has continued to do very well in his job. I never understood why this guy tolerated so much abuse. From what I have seen, there are people like this in most law firms and companies. I remember another law firm I worked in that had hired a similar kind of person. There are people inside nearly every organization who are systematically made fun of and abused, while others around them enjoy poking fun at them. These people become like the court jester, and it is as if the organizations pile on them all of their issues and insecurities.
In addition to people who are directly put down and made fun of inside organizations, there are also people who experience a more subtle form of abuse. They are systematically degraded and put down, their dreams crushed over and over again by their employers. In the years I have spent studying human performance and what it takes to succeed in a job, one fact that occurs to me is that there are situations in which getting out of this pattern of abuse can be extremely difficult. For example, if you are working in one of many American small towns, it is often very hard to find a job as good as the post office and with as many benefits. Despite having to endure various types of abuse (often by customers) many people stay employed in the post office year after year.
Recently I saw a special about General Motors and the problems this company has been experiencing for decades. As part of the special, they were showing the numerous suppliers and others scattered throughout the United States who were dependent upon GM for business. What made this so interesting was that the suppliers were often in small towns with no other employers, and in some cases a supplier might only employ a few people. I thought about this and what it would mean for someone who works for one of these suppliers. Some of the people that were featured on the show had worked for certain suppliers for 20 or more years. They had lived in small communities that had existed for a long time, thriving on the income solely generated by the suppliers. In addition, many of the people working in these factories only knew how to do one thing. For example, they might operate a certain machine that makes bolts.
You might be in a situation right now, wherein you feel as if you are being abused and not treated the way you should be treated. You might not feel appreciated in your current job. If you are being diminished and your work not taken seriously, you should probably look for a different situation. It does not do you any good to be in a work situation in which you are not appreciated and cherished for who you are. Two of the most important things you have in your life are your self-worth and your sanity. You need to realize that you are an important person worthy of immense and genuine respect.
THE LESSON
Your skills and abilities merit profound appreciation; you must therefore place yourself in an environment where you will be so appreciated, and not subject to the negative opinions of others. People tend to believe the negative information that they hear about themselves. A work situation where you are unappreciated will tax your two greatest assets, your self-worth and your sanity.
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, Goal Setting
Tagged: apply for a job, career advice, do not be influenced, find a job, job search, job search guru | a harrison barnes, job search industry, legal jobs, legal profession, negative opinions, psychological health
Job Market
recent posts
In this article Harrison discusses the role of self-motivation and self management. Self-motivated and self managed people always perform well. In contrast people who are forced to follow massive amounts of procedures and rules can never perform. 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. The best people in every job are self- managed and responsible individuals. Also, the more self-managed people there are working for an organization, the stronger the organization generally is. 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.
Your must always strive to create value for your organization, and your organization must in turn strive to add value to the world. Since value comes from teams of individuals rather than any single person, the best companies strive to maximize their staffs’ efficiency. You must also ensure that your company weeds out the employees who do not create value in favor of those who do, and that you belong to the latter group.
When you try to mask or suppress aspects of your personality, those traits will inevitably come to the fore anyway. You need to develop a comprehensive understanding of yourself, including your darker or deeply buried traits; once you know how your dark side limits and controls you, the better you will do in your life and career. Self-discovery will ultimately lead to inner peace, which in turn will enable you to more fully develop your goals.
The number one thing that makes people fail and not reach their potential is competition. If get into an area where there is not much competition and you genuinely have something to offer, you will succeed. Everyone is successful to the extent they are doing something others around them are not that provides value.
Creating a sense of urgency is one of the most important things you can do in your job search. Understand that your career is itself a commodity and you need to sell yourself, and your salesmanship will determine your career success. Creating a sense of urgency will always help you close your sale.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Do not be a dabbler, or someone who turns away in the face of stress; the secret to long-term happiness is to instead confront and push through these stress factors. Do not be discouraged by difficulties, but find ways to persist and deal with the stress. Confronting problems head-on is the key to improvement, and will take you much further than the dabblers who fail to approach their careers with commitment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Related Posts:
Harrison Barnes:
Getting Ahead:
The Role of Jobs in Today's World:
Career Advice:
© 2025 Harrisonbarnes All Rights Reserved
Very interesting story and thanks for sharing…and I do agree with you. Our self worth and Sanity are two of many key/important aspects in life we should not ignore…
Really good article!!! Strive to do your best, improve yourself (as Mr. Barnes streses in his columns) but never be afraid to be yourself… this is what makes you an individual and gives value to your life.
Never let your dignity play second fiddle because someone tries to put you down. You can always find another job (Mr. Barnes and his company will help you find one); and if another individual tries to put you down in a relationship all the time, that relationship will not last. Leave it!
I really identified with this essay about others’ negative opinions. I have felt that way almost all my adult life about the career that I initially chose. I decided, finally, that it was the career itself and not the different jobs within it that I was having problems with. So – I went to law school to try and change things and re-enter the work force with a different skill set. Unfortunately, I did not pass my state bar the first time and had no money to try again. Since then, I have not been able to land a permanent job in either my old field or new.
That is another reason people do not leave abusive situations, particularly in this economy. Having a job, I have learned to my infinite dismay, is better than not.
Thanks for this very thought provoking article. Here’s my story to reinforce that you can overcome and move forward in your life…
I was downsized in early 2009 from a really high-end company. They laid off half of their sales force. I panicked.
A close friend of mine asked me to work for her in her home health agency. I had no experience in the medical field but I was desperate for a job. Besides, she was a good friend…and she promised I would be making even more than my old $100k+ job.
I was critized from day one. She didn’t train me and constantly berated me for not knowing the home health business. I worked my ass off and studied the business on my own and within a few months, I was closing more sales and getting referrals from hospitals that she had never been able to crack in the seven years of her business.
The more successful I became, the worse the abuse. Again, this was a good friend of mine….she docked my commissions for obscure reasons. I was making less than half of what I was promised. However, her business flurished and she bought herself a new Mercedes.
My self esteem had never been lower. I went from being a National Account Manager with prestigious companies,traveling the world, and winning achievement awards to getting beat up on a daily basis for not answering my phone on the first ring.
I can’t remember where I read this but these words struck me to the core. “If you don’t know when enough is enough, then you are destined to contribute to your own suffering.” I quit the next day.
It’s been several months now and I still don’t have a job. But I gotta say, I have never been happier. I know that I will land soon and work for a company that values me. I will return the favor by building their business and value to their customers.
Yes, the kind of emotional abuse you describe here is not far off from what I went through. I had to keep proving myself and I often had incompetent people who I had to please. I started to suffer from lack of self confidence and felt that they must be doing something right and I must be messed up in some way. The job got to be about 75% pain and suffering and 25% held some satisfactory parts to it. The way I dealt with a lot of it was to become a perfectionist and overkill some of the jobs I was on. Basically, I was governed by a fear of failure and the company took advantage of that. I finally left but am still rebuilding self esteem and my health.
So very true – unfortunately I now feel that I am also stupid in believing that most companies believe their mission statement. What I have found in my last 3 positions is that they expect you to believe their mission statement when the company only believes in taking care of themselves. The best way they can look good is to make you look bad. My last supervisor continued on a weekly basis to tell me that I wasn’t doing good enough. Even though I guit 4 months ago I am still feeling the effects of the “beat down.” It is hard to remember that we all have made very good choices and decisions and are good people. Getting out of a situation is not always easy, but I am trying to remain positive.
what a fantastic post, I have you as my homepage as you always make sense and I completely relate. you discuss what other dare. Your posts are memorable and inspirering. I for one am glad you did not listen to the destructive comments as I have been able to relate to this post so much. Keep up the good work its much appreciated.
hello friend.==================
find attorney