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When I was in law school, I was standing in a bar one day and the most beautiful girl I’d seen around campus walked up to me and said:
“I’m just wondering why you never come up to me and try to talk to me. Every other guy I see around at parties does.”
Five years later, we were married. She was right, I might have never walked up to her and introduced myself had she not taken this action herself. Imagine for a moment if she hadn’t walked up to me. The course of both of our lives would have been radically different. The idea that our lives can literally be transformed by these small actions is something that amazes me because it happens all the time and everywhere. Who we become, what we do, and what happens with our lives is often controlled by small actions of stepping up and meeting various individuals we normally might not choose to meet.
Your greatest successes will come from taking some of the smallest actions in terms of meeting people. In meeting one person, you can literally change the course of your career and life. It’s the small action of meeting new people and introducing yourself to others that’s going to transform your destiny. It’s almost impossible for any one person to shape the outcome of their life without the assistance of others. We need others to reach our full potential. The more people you can meet and connect with, the more of a “stacking effect” this is going to have. People are something you need to really reach your full potential in anything.
I’ve hired hundreds of people throughout my career. I have also gotten thousands of people jobs. There have been several occasions in my career when someone has walked up to me and said something such as: “Hello Harrison. I’m really familiar with your work and would love to work with you. I want nothing more that to work with you, and would love to sit down with you and discuss a future with you.”
This has happened before; however, it’s not happened that often. When this has happened, the people who have simply approached me with profound interest in working for me, have more often than not been hired. I hire them because I know they are committed and they’ve gone out of their way to meet me and speak with me about working for me. This is a huge risk people take. Sometimes, it’s not rewarded and others times it is. Most of the time it is.
You simply cannot take it personally if people do not react positively to you when you walk up to them. You just keep moving on. The best people socially do this because they know the rewards for meeting people and forming friendships and connections far outweigh the drawbacks of not making connections.
I remember several months ago, my wife and I were at my daughter’s preschool and she started talking to a woman who seemed quite aloof and had a lot of confidence. My wife was being extremely nice to her and doing everything within her power to make a connection. As we were leaving, my wife told the woman she would love to get together shortly and tried to exchange contact information with the woman. To my astonishment, the woman blew off my wife, and didn’t provide any information. She also avoided the invitation to get together.
“Sure! I understand!” my wife said smiling. My wife has tons of friends and is an extremely happy person. She didn’t appear to care one bit that the woman blew her off. My wife makes friends wherever she goes, and she understands that some people are simply going to be rude.
A few weeks later, I was looking through a magazine and saw the woman who had blown her off in the society section of the magazine together with various celebrities and others. This woman apparently moved in some “important” circles, and felt like she needed to be “aloof” with my wife. Who cares? It’s not something to worry about.
When I was in high school, I went out of my way to meet the admissions officer of the college I wanted to go to and spent time getting to know him. This paid off and I got into my first choice of college.
Something I’ve noticed is many people are clammed up. They are afraid to go outside of the shell they are in. I can think of many times in my own life where I’ve been like this. However, it is the times when I haven’t been clammed up and have allowed myself to open up and introduce myself to new people, places, and things that my life and career have been transformed. Thinking back on this, the occasions where I’ve opened up have been more rare and infrequent than the times where I’ve been withdrawn.
What you need to realize is that when you are withdrawn, nothing is going to happen. People cannot approach you when you are withdrawn, and you cannot connect with people, either. Nothing happens to people who are withdrawn.
How many people have you walked up to in your life and introduced yourself to, only to find years later that they are a part of your life? People are something that can transform us and bring a tremendous amount of depth to our lives. We need to make the extra call. Go the extra distance to meet people. Make the extra contact. You need to do everything within your power to connect with as many people as possible. This is the key to really making things happen in your life. This is what is going to change who you become and where you go.
Much of life and what we do is controlled by and occurs in small moments. Many of the smallest moments out there are something that can have a profound impact on the course of our lives. It is the small things we do and the small risks we take that often have the largest impact on our lives and what happens to us. In our lives, it is incredibly important that we create these small moments that are going to impact our lives. I have so many small moments in my life that have changed the course of my life and career. So many small decisions that have changed the course of my destiny. You, too, likely have many of these small moments in your life, and it is these small moments that you have created in the past and will create in the future that will shape your destiny.
I want you to think about some of the small moments in your life that have shaped who you are and who you have become:
These small actions can all change who you become and what happens to your life. One simple act of introducing yourself to someone can make a massive difference. Get outside of your shell and meet others.
THE LESSON
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.
Read More About Always Try and Accept Invitations to Spend Time Outside of Work With Colleagues:
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, Staying Positive
Tagged: communicate people, introduced yourself, stacking effect, take small actions
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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.
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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.
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.
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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Yes you are right in you saying but sometimes you may find other have not interest to receive your taliking or your conversation, particularly when you feel she/he have the some feeling but suddenly you will find yourself you are not accepted from other. But i thing at all its happen sometimes and its depend to life of the community to are with them.
Thank you for you giving these space.
I like these topic which are discuss about societies.
Yes you are right in your saying but sometimes you may find the other have no interest to receive your talking or your conversation, particularly when you feel she/he have the some feeling but suddenly you will find yourself you are not accepted from other. But I thing at all its happen sometimes and its depend to the life of the community you are living with them.
Thank you for you giving these space.
I like these topics which are discuss about societies.
willpower is me .
Nice, thought provoking article !