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When I was around 13 years old, I was doing so poorly in school that I was told I could not return the next year to the private high school I was attending.
To add insult to injury, the school told me I would be lucky to finish high school at a public high school and should consider going to a special needs school. They called my parents into a meeting where they presented them with all sorts of brochures for boarding schools for special needs kids who would never amount to much. I still remember reading those brochures in amazement. I’d always done exceptionally well on standardized tests, had been a good student up until a year previously and here I was looking at being pigeonholed the day I started high school.
I had a bad year. I’d switched schools the previous year and was spending time with lots of kids who were acting out to some extent. I was having more fun with my new friends than paying attention in class. I was getting bad grades because I was not studying hours each night as the school expected and I was paying the price.
My parents did not follow the private middle school’s advice and within a year, despite being the same person, I was a straight A student and attending an even more competitive private high school than the one I was kicked out of. (I will tell you how that happened in a minute.)
If you are like me, your experience with life has likely not been too different from my own. In both your career and personal life, odds are, you have been called many bad things. Everyone has.
• In souring relationships, you have likely been called negative names and had all sorts of judgments made about you.
• You have likely gotten in arguments with family members and have heard them say bad things about you.
• You have likely been called names and judged by employers, co-workers, and others.
Sometimes the things people have said about you may have been correct—and you may have even deserved it. Other times, they might have been wrong.
In virtually every case when someone has attacked me and said bad things to me–or about me–I have refused to participate in calling them names back.
It is my personal belief that you should never call people negative names or make judgments about them. Doing so negatively affects their self-image and what they think about themselves. Once you tell people they are worthless, a horrible person, ugly, and so forth you send a message to their subconscious mind that they are these sorts of people.
People remember it when others judge them negatively and it does a tremendous amount of harm to their self-image.
• One of the worst things you can do to another person is harm their self-image.
• One of the best things you can do to a person is help their self-image.
I’ve had the philosophy of never calling people names my entire career. I always look to build people up instead of ripping them down–even people who do poorly in their jobs. In looking at the careers of the people who have worked for our companies in the past, in most instances, they are doing extremely well and continue to grow as they did when they were with us. I think that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I have always tried to have a culture that tells people they are good over and over again–and not one that makes them feel bad about themselves.
You can often tell a lot about the quality of a company, organization, or family by what ends up happening to the people who come out of it. The groups you are a part of will often shape your self-image because of the feedback they give you. I’ve seen families where everyone became doctors and went to Ivy League schools and others where everyone became drug addicts–the difference a lot of time (most of the time, I believe) comes from the self-image that people get from these groups.
You should always ask what the person–or persons–who used to do the job you are interviewing for are doing now. This will often say a lot about the sort of feedback and confidence those people received and how this affected their self-image.
In my opinion, you should do everything you possibly can to avoid people and groups who damage your self-image. Employers who make you feel incompetent or that you are somehow inferior will hurt your self-image. Family, “friends,” and others who seek to downgrade your self-image should also be avoided.
There is nothing wrong with being around people who help you grow and challenge you but people who consistently make stabs at your self-image should be avoided.
A year or so ago, I was speaking with a woman in her late 30s who had formerly been a well-known model and on a then popular television series for a short time. She was married to an incredibly wealthy man and a very happy person. However, she expressed to me that she liked to spend most of her time at home or with her kids–and not doing any socializing whatsoever.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because people suck,” she said. “They are always telling you how much more successful they are than you, how much more popular they are than you, how much better they are at this and that than you. I find that most of the people I meet I end up walking away from being depressed.“
She then started telling me how she uses visualization and all sorts of positive affirmations to make her feel good about herself. She was carrying around some of the visualizations with her at the time.
This woman is incredibly beautiful and wealthy and has everything to be happy about. Because she has all this success though, she feels a lot of people out there are competitive with her and “trying to bring her down” and thus she avoids them.
Her self-image is fragile enough that she avoids people–most people–because she feels they will harm it. She grew up in a family that was not supportive of her and has used visualization, therapy, and all sorts of things to counteract her negative self-image most of her life (and it has worked). She is far more successful than anyone else in her family and her older brother has actually spent time living on the streets.
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with her opinions about avoiding people but I do think everyone should be meeting people and getting out. The issue though, is that she is taking drastic steps to protect her self-image because it is fragile. She only wants to be around people who make her feel supported and lifted up and not the other way around.
There are probably certain parts of your self-image that are fragile as well. Everyone has “weak spots” in their armor that end up determining who we are and who we will become.
The way we think about ourselves will generally determine the person we end up becoming. It is for this reason that self-image is so important. In fact, your self-image will determine how successful you become in almost any circumstance and no matter where you find yourself.
In the 1950s a highly successful plastic surgeon in New York, Maxwell Maltz, discovered that despite being able to change the way people looked he could not change how people felt about the way they looked. He believed the reason was psychological and that in addition to needing a “physical facelift,” the people he worked with needed a “psychological facelift.” Maltz was the first person to popularize the term “self- image” to describe how people felt inside.
I find this observation of Maltz absolutely fascinating:
• How many people do you know who have sabotaged a relationship, job, or opportunity they had because their self-image was “not up to” whatever opportunity they may have had?
• In contrast, how many people have used an opportunity that presented itself to drastically improve their self-image and become more?
Discouraged by the fact that plastic surgery did not change how people felt about themselves, Maltz studied self-image and wrote the book Psycho-Cybernetics in 1960. Here, he theorized that the brain was like a computer on a guided missile that would automatically find a path to its target–the person’s self-image that he or she has been programmed with.
There are three important points that I believe Maltz makes in the book:
• In order for someone to make a positive change, the mind needs a “positive” defined internal target that it was aimed at, focused on, and refocused on until it hit its goal.
• Without a defined target, the person’s energy would be squandered. In fact, not having any goals is something people use for “avoidance” and is a form of denial.
• If a person had a poor existing self-image and no positively defined target, they would likely continue to move towards that goal.
Your current self-image is what gives your brain direction. This self-image is something that guides you on an unconscious level and actually ends up steering you to where you end up going.
How did I go from being a student recommended for “special education” to a straight A student in only one year? It was very simple. I had been an outstanding student all through elementary school. While it was a bit more complicated than simply deciding to be a great student, I already had a positive self-image of the fact that I would be able to do well in school. Because of this positive self-image, I was able to quickly fall back on that because I said to myself “your bad performance this year is not the person you are.” This self-image enabled me to change very quickly.
You absolutely need to ground yourself with a positive self-image. The stronger your self-image, the more you are likely to end up becoming in the long run. Giving yourself a strong self-image will have a profound impact on your experience.
Some people fail and they give themselves such a negative self-image due to that failure they never try again. Some people get divorced and decide they can never be a good wife or husband. That should not define the person. For example, people like Johnny Carson was married four times and consider Larry King:
Last night Larry King rather awkwardly returned to his old hour at CNN to chat with his successor, Piers Morgan. After calling out Morgan for being too boastful in the promos for his show, King conceded that he was rooting for him. And then a funny thing happened: Morgan mentioned that King has been married eight times, to seven women. King corrected him, saying the tally was one too many. But Morgan was right — King has been married eight times, twice to former Playboy bunny Alene Akins. “I forget,” said King, sheepishly. “The only one that counts is the current one.” New York Magazine, February 24, 2011
If people like Larry King do not allow their failures to define their self-images why should you?
Many people continually seem confused. They are not clear about what they want and are always bouncing around from one job to another, from one friend to another, to one relationship to another. It is always best to get and be clear about what you want out of your life and to work on improving your self-image.
You should come back to this again and again and tell yourself you are an accomplished person, can do anything you want, and will succeed at whatever you want to achieve.
You also need to guard your mind FIERCELY from anyone who wants to shake your self-image and hurt it.
Nothing is more important to your success and happiness than your self-image.
Read More About If You Spend Time With Negative People, Your Organization Will Assume that You too Have a Negative Attitude and it Will Hurt You:
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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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.
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Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
Determine whether you are a global or specific person. Most people are either too general or too specific in the way they treat information, and overly detail-oriented people risk losing sight of the bigger picture. General people are more comfortable in managerial positions, while detail-oriented people prefer everything to conform to a logical sequence. Understand which sort of person you are, and seek work that best harnesses your natural inclination.
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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.
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Your résumé is an extremely important document. There are entire books written about how to craft them. I have written at least one myself. There are scores of résumé consultants, companies, and others that will work on your résumé for a fee. Hiring one of these services can be useful and can improve your résumé. Nevertheless, most résumés can improve dramatically by following the below advice.
In this article Harrison explains how you can do better in your career by selling. The most successful people are absolute masters at sales. Selling is among the most important career skills you can have. When you know how to sell something you can do exceptionally well wherever you go. Knowing how to sell something is a key to survival, advancement, fame, and fortune. Everything we do is about making a sale. Selling yourself is about showing others the value you can bring them. So package yourself to the best of your ability, always be at your best and sell yourself. Develop your sales skills and do not be afraid to sell anything. Whatever your goal in life, becoming an effective salesman will help you achieve it.
It is absolutely vital to be in control of your life and career. When you fail to control your life, someone else will step in to do so and fit your life into their plans. Understand that it is in others’ interests to establish control over your life and work, and instead exert control yourself over your life and the events around you.
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.
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I had an egotistical research administrator who made my research coordinators feel incompetent to the point that they left their jobs, when in fact, it was the egotistical research administrator that was less competent. I am upset I could not help the competent research coordinators. From this article, are you suggesting I could have done more to help them???
This article was extremely helpful to me. It spoke to everything I was thinking. I had a stroke 6 years ago and have been trying to return to work for the last 4 years. However, I could never decide what I wanted to do, because I have been concentrating on how I failed, I’ve been thinking about all the negative things people have said about me in the past, instead of focusing on what I truly want to do. Now, I will use this time to as an opportunity to move forward. I will guard my self -imafge like a hawk….and find that new job!
Why did you delete my comment?
What I wrote is true about the egotistical research administrator bulling the competent research coordinators even though the egotistical research administrator is less competent. Should I have tried to help the competent research coordinators in a different way???
Please clarify!
My best friend in college went to college only to settle a score once and for all. She’d been labelled “remedial” in the first grade.
Dear Mr. Harrison,
I would like to comment on this article. It is excellent, and is a good catalyst to boost up people who are dejected.
Keep writing, as I am impressed with the way you approach your core point.
Thanks,
VGSK