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When I was about 12 years old I went to look at BMWs with a relative of mine. We spent several hours in the dealership. My relative was trying to figure out if there was a way to get a lower lease payment on the car. Negotiating with the people in the dealership took him a very long time. We were in a not-so-great area of Detroit, and I could see my relative was trying to get a good deal, and was feeling like a big shot in the process. For most of us, buying a car is among the most significant events in our lives, and for this relative it was no different. He was someone who had gone to all the right schools, played by the rules, and continually held jobs for a long time.
About two hours into the negotiation, a couple of men pulled up in a giant, brand new BMW. The stereo was blasting and the car had aftermarket rims that looked expensive. The salesman who had been speaking with my relative said “just a moment” and rushed over to the men in the car. Before the salesman ran over he indicated that the men had paid with actual cash for the car and were drug dealers. He told us that drug dealers were his best customers because they always paid cash and rarely negotiated.
One of the guys had apparently brought one of his friends to look at cars. The salesman completely lost interest in us for several minutes, despite being in the middle of a negotiation.
My relative and I sat together in the salesman’s office for about 20 minutes until the two men who had been in the car appeared with the salesman. Despite the fact I was quite young, I immediately realized the two men were very uneducated and appeared somewhat rough. They wore leather coats and lots of gold jewelry.
“I’ll be right with you,” the salesman said as he popped his head in the door of the office where we were sitting. “I just need to get these guys out of here and deliver their car.”
About five minutes later, one of the men said he might be interested in a second car on the lot, in addition to the one he was already buying. He asked the salesman to show him a second car.
My relative was disgusted. After that, we got up and left. As we were leaving, my relative said something I’ll never forget. He was in his early 50s at the time, and the men buying the car could not have been more than 25.
“I’ve worked hard all of my life and I cannot even afford one of those cars. Those guys who just came in probably never went to college, and look at them.”
I could see my relative was very saddened by what he had seen. It was as if the rules of society were working against him.
A few years later, I saw the movie Scarface and was mesmerized. Scarface is about a man (played brilliantly by Al Pacino) who comes to the United States from Cuba and is placed in a detention center. He is told he can get a green card and earn his freedom if he kills someone in the detention center, and he does. He gets a job in a restaurant as a dishwasher and cook, but soon decides he does not want this life. He is told if he picks up some drugs for someone he will be given a few thousand dollars. He goes over to pick up the drugs and is almost killed, and his brother is killed in the process. He starts working for the drug dealer for whom he was picking up the drugs. Very soon he has mansions, beautiful women, fast cars, and all the material possessions anyone could want.
As the director shows us all of this, a song is playing with the refrain “take it to the limit” over and over again. The implication from the music and the acting is that Pacino’s character has taken his life to the limit and made the most of himself, albeit in a life of crime.
This movie is remarkable because it is so quintessentially American. In the United States, stories like this occur every day. People who come to this country with nothing become huge successes. They can do this without educations, without connections, without any special advantages. The results they accomplish are achieved through the human spirit.
I used to work in a law firm, and I have spent most of my life around people who are well-educated, who are playing by the bureaucratic rules of society – people like my relative at the BMW dealership. When you spend time with these types of people, you notice they have a certain disdain for those who’ve somehow gotten ahead in life without playing by the rules regarding schools, titles, and so forth – the things most of society views as important. These people look at the people around them who are succeeding and decide that achieving success must have everything to do with luck.
This is not true.
What is true is that there is a glass ceiling in your life, my life, and most people’s lives, which we need to push through and shatter. Certain people push through these glass ceilings to achieve what they want in life, and others do not.
The man in Scarface smashed through the glass ceiling.
The customers in the BMW dealership smashed through the glass ceiling.
My relative did not. Most people do not.
The glass ceiling represents your potential, but it also represents a lot more. In order to illustrate the true power of the glass ceiling, I would like to tell you a couple of quick stories about my experience regarding people and glass ceilings. A glass ceiling has more to do with what you think you are worth and what you think you can contribute than anything else. When you establish your own worth and believe you are worth more, your relationships, your way of seeing the world – everything else changes.
BCG Attorney Search is one of the companies I manage. At BCG Attorney Search, we typically hire recruiters out of prestigious law firms to work with attorneys from equally prestigious law firms. The recruiters earn salaries based on a commission structure, and the more placements the recruiters make, the more money they earn.
Prior to becoming recruiters, these individuals were all getting paid law firm salaries. Several years ago, I began to notice a pattern that’s repeated itself to this day. If a recruiter made $100,000 the year before they became a recruiter, they would make $100,000 in commissions in their first year with our company. If they made $250,000 the year before they became recruiter, their first year’s commissions would amount to $250,000.
I wondered, for instance, why very capable people were not making more placements, and therefore more pay, once they started working for us. It is extremely hard to become a recruiter at BCG. We probably interview 100 people for every one person who gets the job. I knew we were not simply seeing this phenomenon because of some sort of error in our screening process, or some lack of ability on the part of our hires. There was more to it than that.
The people who became recruiters for BCG were setting their own value in everything they did. The number of people they spoke with, their passion for the subject matter, and how hard they worked all set the tone for the results they achieved. When you are in a commission-style job, you get paid based on the amount of commissions you generate. Sales is a very complex discipline on numerous levels, and salespeople do essentially control their own incomes.
The recruiters, in these cases, were being trapped by what they thought they were worth. They were self-imposing a limit as to what they could earn. Once we realized the recruiters were trapped, we started doing everything within our power to pull them out of the trap, and to make them see they could earn as much money as they wanted and be anyone they chose to be. In reality, these recruiters were not limited in value to the amount of their previous salaries.
You need to establish your own terms for your life. You need to make these terms the greatest you possibly can. If you are currently in a bureaucratic organization and have played by all the rules, you need to ensure the organization can give you what you want from your life. The point of this is simple: life gives you what you ask of it. Your career gives you what you demand of it.
In the BMW dealership that day there were two ‘meetings of the minds’. In one of the meetings was a mind that had always done whatever others told it, and paid others whatever they asked. Another mind did what it wanted to and set its own goals. Al Pacino in Scarface set his own goals as well.
When you concentrate on your largest perceived reward, you can smash through glass ceilings. Remember the glass ceiling only exists in your mind.
THE LESSON
In this article, Harrison explains the importance of smashing that glass ceiling which you have created in your minds – the ceiling which almost always pulls you down. To feel that others are more successful because they are lucky or because you don’t have as much potential is a big myth. You need to push through this myth and set your own worth and terms for your life, and believe that you are capable of a lot more than what you think. On doing this, your relationships, your way of seeing the world, and everything else around you changes. The glass ceiling exists only in your mind and you need to simply mould it to think greater of you. Realize the potential in you, smash the ceiling, and go ahead with a successful life.
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, Life Lessons
Tagged: career blog | a harrison barnes, concentrate on reward, glass ceiling, job search, job search advice, push yourself, scarface, test your limit
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Resourcefulness can make you better at everything you do, and separates the truly extraordinary people from the general herd. Do everything within your power to be resourceful in your job search, life, and career to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, and learn how to employ the resources currently at your disposal for maximum impact.
The most successful people in the world share the common characteristic of sharing, or concentrating on the value that they give back to others rather than on their own growth and profit. Focusing on yourself never leads to long-term success, but leads instead to unhappiness as well as emotional and financial challenges. Your greatest consideration, therefore, should be how you can contribute to others, and how your actions can impact their lives.
The best way to attain your goal is through small, incremental steps on which you can build. Establish a routine, and make sure you are consistently working towards some kind of goal. Start small, and always build upon what you have done before. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they believe everything should happen quickly and at the same time, instead of progressively building upon their past achievements.
Make sure that you are involved in groups that focus on positive things. Your success in life depends on your ability to focus on the outcomes you want, and the focus of the groups with which you associate will in turn shape your own focus. You must endeavor to always choose groups with a positive focus.
Everything you do is a form of preparation for your job interviews, as you are always under some form of scrutiny. The best employees can always spot other good employees, and you cannot “fake it”; merely doing a good job in your work is a form of interview preparation. Always put your all into your work, therefore, even if you do not have long-term plans to remain at your current employment. Switch jobs as infrequently as possible. The time to prepare for a job search is before you even realize that you need to do so.
Your greatest successes will come from some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. You will cause a “stacking effect” the more you meet and connect with people; conversely, people cannot connect with you when you are withdrawn and nothing will happen. You must do everything in your power to connect with as many people as possible.
When myriad candidates are applying to limited positions, practicing unusual tactics in your job hunt will prove far more helpful than following the established routine and waiting for positions to come to you. Much like in military strategy, well-planned and unconventional moves can help you conquer your goals without suffering significant losses. You can land an excellent position by focusing on companies’ needs, rather than depending on job and recruiting advertisements.
You can change your life forever by harnessing the power of persistence. Think about the people in your life, and whether they empower you or hinder you in achieving your goals. You must win at all costs, and persist until you succeed.
You need to provide people what they want, otherwise you will not have a job. Although they might not always be the most desirable kinds of jobs, certain jobs always exist because they provide services that people will always require. The only secret to continual employment is to provide a service that people always need; if you do this, and nothing else, you will always find yourself employed. Give people what they want.
Your ability to help people will determine the extent of your success; the more powerful and effective your help, the greater rewards you will receive. One of the rarest and most profound achievements is to follow through on your goals and create a paradigm-shifting idea. The more revolutionary your work, the more people you will affect and the more memorable of a career you will have.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
The ability to fit into your work environment is among the most important parts of obtaining and retaining a job, even more so than your skill level. Fitting in means nothing more than being comfortable in one’s work environment, and making others similarly comfortable. Employers want to hire people who will embrace their approach to business and the world on physical and moral levels, so you must strive to fit in with their worldview.
Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.
In this article, Harrison advises you to live the lives you wish to have, do the jobs you want to do, and basically live your dreams to your best possible ability. Life is fleeting and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So Harrison puts forward certain questions – when are you going to start living the life you want and when are you going to take charge of your life. The time to have the career you want is right now, not tomorrow, and not later. You need to take charge of your career and life and no one else is going to do it for you. Your entire life and the quality of it is a product of your decisions. You can have, do, or be anything you want. Do not create alibis for making comprises in life. What separates the best and the happiest people is the ability to stop to making excuses and Harrison wants you to be this person.
Anyone can be up when things are going well, but the real challenge comes when things are not. Do not look at problems, which are inevitable for any person or business, in a negative light; think of them instead as challenges, lessons, or opportunities. There is a silver lining to be found in every problem, and finding that silver lining will enable you to grow.
Understanding what you do for a living is very important for your career. You should understand the generality of your specific profession. You and your career are a product. You need to know where and how to market yourself in the best way possible. You need to be relevant and understand the skills you are offering. Being a relevant product is essential for your success. It’s easy to be relevant when you understand what you are doing and what purpose you serve. Being relevant is more than just getting a job. Being relevant also relates to serving the employers with the skills they need. You need to understand your market and what your customers want. This is the way to stay employed, and it is also the means to continual improvement.
Things will not always go the way that you want them to go, so you must not be discouraged by adversity in your job hunt. When you persist and consistently put forth your best effort, things are much more likely to go in your favor. Also, you must resist others’ efforts to undermine your efforts and potential; focus instead on doing everything in your power to fight on and complete the task at hand.
Having a goal or vision will propel you towards greater career success and happiness. Without a purpose, you will find yourself depressed and ultimately fail to achieve your goals. Do not subscribe to the unrealistic problem that you should never have problems, but instead regard problems as part of your overall growth strategy.
Don’t ever give up, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Take chances and invest in your best skills, and persist in the face of unfortunate events. Have faith in your considerable work and capabilities, and use them to create value for others.
In this article Harrison discusses what a good hiring manager should look for. Many people who make hiring decisions really do not know what they are doing. In fact, they often make mistakes when hiring. They put too much emphasis on skills and experience. But the single most important aspect of hiring is evaluating the person’s unique outlook on the world. If the person does not have a positive outlook on the world, he/she will bring down the morale of the other workers. The person will harm the company through the negative outlook. The key to success is having the power to stick it out in jobs and finding happiness wherever you are. Hiring people who do good work and are always able to find happiness should be the number one objective of hiring managers.
To reach the goals to which you aspire, you must compare yourself with people superior to you for motivation. Most people prefer to look at life the way they wish it to be, rather than as it truly is. Move out of your comfort zones and face reality. Don’t seek out or compare yourself with the average people around you, as doing so will only mire you in mediocrity rather than push you forward.
You can better market yourself by taking a stand against something. Peoples’ personal beliefs, including the things with which they do not agree, define who they are as people. Standing against something differentiates you from the crowd; when done in the correct manner, without disrespecting others’ opinions, such a stance can help you land your dream job.
Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
Determine whether you are a global or specific person. Most people are either too general or too specific in the way they treat information, and overly detail-oriented people risk losing sight of the bigger picture. General people are more comfortable in managerial positions, while detail-oriented people prefer everything to conform to a logical sequence. Understand which sort of person you are, and seek work that best harnesses your natural inclination.
In this article Harrison talks about releasing the lack that you feel, in order to reach your full potential. If a sense of lack dominates your thinking, it will affect your interaction with the world and how the world sees you. There are many areas of your life where you are coming from a position of lack. Your ability to release this lack and go forward with your life can create a tremendous sense of peace and more natural accomplishments in your world. The amount of lack that people see out there is profound and it has a massive impact on their lives. According to Harrison, the most successful people in the world see the world as a place of opportunity and not lack.
When faced with difficult times, you must develop the ability to transcend the trouble around you instead of giving up or assuming that nothing can be done about your situation. Keep your wits about you and take charge of the situation, and you will find yourself on track for constant improvement and career success.
It is extremely important that you enjoy your job. Most people find themselves in jobs that they resent, and eventually make this resentment known by appearing disinterested and distracted. Success comes from being engaged in and grateful for your work. You can define your job according to your own vision; you can either choose to engage with your work, or avoid and despise what you do. People recognize and appreciate those who are enthusiastic about their work.
Your résumé is an extremely important document. There are entire books written about how to craft them. I have written at least one myself. There are scores of résumé consultants, companies, and others that will work on your résumé for a fee. Hiring one of these services can be useful and can improve your résumé. Nevertheless, most résumés can improve dramatically by following the below advice.
In this article Harrison explains how you can do better in your career by selling. The most successful people are absolute masters at sales. Selling is among the most important career skills you can have. When you know how to sell something you can do exceptionally well wherever you go. Knowing how to sell something is a key to survival, advancement, fame, and fortune. Everything we do is about making a sale. Selling yourself is about showing others the value you can bring them. So package yourself to the best of your ability, always be at your best and sell yourself. Develop your sales skills and do not be afraid to sell anything. Whatever your goal in life, becoming an effective salesman will help you achieve it.
It is absolutely vital to be in control of your life and career. When you fail to control your life, someone else will step in to do so and fit your life into their plans. Understand that it is in others’ interests to establish control over your life and work, and instead exert control yourself over your life and the events around you.
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Hi. I am a long time reader. I wanted to say that I like your blog and the layout.
Peter Quinn
Once again, thanks.
When is Mr. Barnes going to publish all of these great tidbits in a book? He really should.
While some I know have criticized his columns for being a bit self-serving (I don’t), what he is offering is the proverbial “just about everything that lawyers need to know but don’t learn in law school.” They should learn this stuff. I’m certainly growing as a lawyer and person by it, and Mr. Barnes needs to publish it.
This article very nice, I have read this. Thank you for your very good article. Wish more more article like this. Thanks
shaheenul
Thank you for writing a nice column.I really like this type of writing.It is real truth that says in this column.
Hey guy, I saw the most of the job sites. But A Harrison Barnes is the best one for other job sites. Please you read this article. And get more important thinks. Thank you.
This site, run by the author of the bestselling job-hunting and its also offers lists of the best super sites and job search engines. Some of the job search websites are not clearly discussed by those we need. Just they gave outline knowledge about job search but this sites are gave full knowledge and good ideas about jobsearch
According this job search engine OR web search, This is “one of the best” job search sites, valued for its job search extras, including networking boards, job search alerts, and online resume posting and also its “a very solid” job search site that is easy to use and “uncovers a lot of jobs that you wouldn’t normally find.”
Beginners are advised no to be too choosy as the Market and the Competition is really tough. Get the job that requires your skills, gain your experience you will definitely make the money in your next job and at that time you will have less efforts put in searching for one.
Hi! I just did a hub on job-hunting…. Speedy search, easily navigated interface, option of looking for jobs in several countries and languages. This is a great site, incredibly easy to navigate and lists a massive amount of job offers — impossible not to find at least a handful of jobs that interest you.
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I have managed hundreds of salespeople in my life. The best ones definitely had high expectations and aspirations for themselves. They were successful because they started out INTENDING to be successful. Many of the less successful ones blamed others for their lack of success or simply had lower personal expectations.
I’d venture to say however that the happiest and most routinely successful salespeople were also the most honest and the hardest working.
It seems that using the main character of the Scarface movie, as well as the two (apparent) thugs at the car dealership, as paragons of success is inapt in this case. Scarface was a murderer and a large scale drug dealer. He killed people to make money. He had other people kill people to make money. His actions caused immense harm to many others. He had material success, but was an utter failure as a human being and came to a very unpleasant end in the movie, as most people of his ilk do in real life.
I’d like to think that behaving in an ethical manner can also lead to material success – self-imposed “glass ceiling” or not. Selfishly stomping on others to be “successful” makes life miserable for oneself and those others who have been so stomped.
Educated or not, materially successful or not, dishonest / evil people are usually found out and shunned by others (except those that are so materialistic and uncivilized that they want to imitate dishonest behavior so they too can be “successful”.)
Perhaps a more apt example of success might be someone who attained success for themselves through honest means and who helped others do the same. That’s true success measured on a material level as well as on the levels of humanity and decency.
The Scarface character is not to be admired for being someone who “set his own goals”. Like many felons in real-life prison awaiting a death sentence, he was simply someone who could not organize his life or his own behavior to consider the importance of other people, who also have goals, aspirations and families. Scarface sought to benefit himself by harming others. That’s hardly laudable behavior. It’s the law of the jungle and can make the work environment and life in general, quite unpleasant.
I’d propose someone along the lines of Fred Smith at FedEx as a better example. He is an honest leader who built a $35 billion a year business from scratch, who created a well-documented family – friendly work culture for the 300,000 plus FedEx employees and a business offering that is widely regarded as without peer in it’s category. Most FedEx customers LOVE FedEx because the company routinely delivers what it promises.
That’s true success – both material and human. Fred is quite wealthy as a result – and deservedly so.
This website is very big website so all kind of people will come here for job searching work.I will recommend this website for your career so come here and got the job…
This website is one of the good site for job seekers.They can build their Career through this site.This website helps you to find your dream job.
Loss for words. This blog gets better and better. I have to shatter my own glass ceiling. Living life fearlessly is the way to go.
While some of the time some best sites are released. Including A Harrison Barnes site. This is the best one for other job sites. Please visit this site. Thanks.
While some of the time some best sites are released. Including A Harrison Barnes site. This is the best one for other job sites. Please visit this site. Thanks.
Somewhat related to your writing, you should read “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.