Advancement
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There is a secret to success, common among most successful people out there that I have seen time and time again: working on Sundays.
When I was practicing law, the best attorneys were always in on Sundays.
When I was a student in college and law school, the best students always worked on Sundays.
In my professional career, a good portion of the most accomplished executives and others I have known work on Sundays.
When I say ”work on Sundays” I mean they are working the entire day. They are not working for a few hours—they dedicate most of their day to working on Sundays. They may go for a run in the morning, to church, or have brunch with their families; however, they still end up working most of the day.
There is something about Sundays that seems to attract the best, brightest, and most accomplished in the professional world. When you talk to the best lawyers, accountants, researchers, business executives, and others, a good portion of them will declare a profound respect for working on Sundays.
What is it about Sundays that attract so many people? I have studied successful people all of my career and whenever I meet these ”Sunday workers,” I always ask them one thing: ”Why do you like working on Sundays?”
Before I started asking these successful people why they work on Sundays, I thought they must like to work hard, be trying to get ahead—competing for a raise, promotion, and so forth. To some extent, I think this is true for many people. But the overwhelming answer that I have heard from all of these people who work on Sundays is this: ”It is the only day of the week when I can work without interruptions.”
To me, this answer was fascinating—although I had never really thought about interruptions and how detrimental they could be at that point in my career. Very much wanting success and to be part of the crowd of people I saw working on Sundays, I too started working on Sundays more than 25 years ago … and since then (holidays excluded) I have never missed a beat. Sunday is the day that is sacrosanct for me, and working on Sundays is something that I need to do.
Why Sunday? Personally, I do not think people need to work on Sunday. The reason so many people (myself included) work on Sunday is because they are overtaken with interruptions throughout the week. It is as if it is impossible to get anything done during work hours. This is a trap everyone falls into:
On Sundays (mostly) the phone stops ringing, the ”urgent emails” stop coming and the people to chat with are not around. There is more reason to focus and there are fewer distractions. Sundays are when most people can get stuff done.
Recently I was speaking with a very well-known executive running a good-sized company who had an accident and had injured his brain: ”I am the brains behind the business and a brain injury was not a good thing for the business,” he told me.
When you look at the best executives (and the best people in any profession for that matter), their strength comes from their ability to think and decide. It is their ability to concentrate, draw upon their experience and get things done, where their true value comes from. In most cases, the best professionals are not paid to day dream, surf the Internet, or mindlessly check their email all day: Instead, they are paid for their powers of concentration and ability to formulate solutions and analyze, and communicate information in ways that others cannot.
I love watching shows about doctors trying to decipher various illnesses people have. A doctor is someone who is paid to think, paid to concentrate, and paid for the ability that they can interpret information. It is the same thing with most lawyers. Anyone who is good at their job (and has reached a good level of professional standing based on their abilities) can concentrate on the task at hand. This is the case for a good car mechanic, just as it is the case for a physicist. Our abilities and the assessment of our abilities are determined largely by our ability to concentrate.
You do not need Sundays in order to concentrate. The most successful people should not need Sundays to concentrate. Instead, they should develop the habit and self-discipline to be able to concentrate every day, all the time.
There are different work you can do on your job. There are both qualitative and quantitative dimensions of your job:
The professional world is generally set up to reward people who are able to do an exceptional job on the qualitative aspects of their work. The most intelligent people and the people who do the best in the world are also the people who can do the best in the qualitative aspects of the work they do.
In college, for some strange reason, I placed into honors calculus. In order to do well in honors calculus, you needed to be able to concentrate on very long drawn-out problems that were extremely sophisticated and had many, many twists and turns built into them. In contrast, regular calculus (which I transferred into later) was in the same class but just involved ”baby problems” that were far less sophisticated and much easier to do. Everyone I knew, who could complete honors calculus and did not ”chicken out” and transfer to another course, is doing exceptionally well professionally to this day. They are doctors, PhDs, and others. I have no doubt that the ability to think through and concentrate for long periods of time that the course inculcated in them made a difference to some extent to what happened to them.
The course taught more than calculus: It taught the ability to concentrate on complex issues for a long period of time and see a depth of problems (and solutions) that other people did not.
If you can concentrate for a long period of time on a single issue, you will improve the quality of the work that you do. Nothing is more important than the qualitative aspects of your work. The qualitative aspects of your work are incredibly important because they end up determining your outcome.
Good companies and employers value efficiency. Good companies and employers value people who can get more done in less time. Good companies and employers value people who are organized and think through issues when they are working on something.
Most employers can tell if you are ”full of it” and not concentrating during work. When an employer walks around the office and sees a bunch of people talking and messing around, taking long lunches, doing all sorts of personal calls, screwing around on the Internet, and more — they know who is being productive with their time and who it not. No employer is stupid. What would you think if you were an employer?
When the time comes to make promotional decisions, the people who are promoted in companies are the people who can concentrate on the task at hand. Concentrating on the task at hand and not getting distracted is incredibly important. You need to work hard and be focused.
The people who work so hard on Sundays (in my opinion) are doing so because they have a hard time concentrating during the week. However, if you can concentrate during the week and minimize distractions, then you do not need a Sunday. 100% focus during the week is crucial and it could change your career and life. The qualitative and not the quantitative aspects of your work are the most important.
At the end of each day, you should be tired of having exercised and concentrated your mind. If you take breaks from your work every 45 minutes or so, you should be tired of having concentrated on your work. You should put your full effort into whatever you do.
You should also not try to do over one thing at a time. Break up your day into the tasks you would like to accomplish and do them at specified times. Work on tasks in 30 minute increments (or whatever suits you). Never try to do over one thing at a time.
Few people realize how crucial managing their work, time and qualitative aspects of their work are. You need to concentrate. Your mind and your use of it is where all the rewards are going to come from. You need to give everything you are doing your full attention.
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
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Tagged: attorney search, career advice, career blog | a harrison barnes, job search, job search industry, legal career, legal jobs, new job, professional careers
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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.
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.
In this article Harrison discusses how persistent pursuit of something you believe in, against all obstacles, is one of the most important keys to success. So many of us just decide at some point not to push through and not to keep going even when a little bit of extra effort would push us through. The secret to being incredibly good at everything is pushing through and getting better and better when others around you are quitting. Even while hiring, employers want experts and people who are the best at what they are doing–they do not want dabblers. They want to hire the person who is incredibly committed to a job and has persisted against odds in one direction when others have given up.
In this article Harrison suggests that you actually may be safer getting a job without the help of family or friends. It is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. They may not even want to help you get a job for various reasons. Their involvement in your job search may actually hurt you. The organization may actually look upon you negatively if you try to use a friend or family member to get a job. So going through a close contact is often counterproductive to your job search. Even if you get a position through a friend or family member, you could harm your relationship with that person in the process. Your friend or family member’s act of kindness may ultimately unbalance your relationship. The risks involved in this kind of job far outweigh the potential rewards.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
In this article, Harrison explains the importance of making an effort in your job which is way above what is expected of you. When you have been given certain responsibilities, it means that someone is dependent on you for certain things. When you fulfill these duties far more efficiently, put in a lot more time and effort, and even stay back on weekends and holidays to complete or do extra work, your employers get the message that you are sharing their burden of pressures with them and begin to place tremendous trust in you. This is what paves the path to your promotion and growth in the company. Harrison believes that you need to develop the correct attitude and possess an extraordinary work ethic to thrive in the job you do.
In this article Harrison discusses how resisting change and not taking necessary and relevant action can be the biggest obstacles to a better career and better life. Resistance is something that prevents most people from ever changing. Resisting change can be highly damaging to your growth in your career and life. Instead of allowing your life to be controlled by external circumstances, choose to take action and bring about a change. Conduct a brutal self analysis if needed, to clear the blocks you have in your mind and to bring about change that is necessary. Most people give up. They do not persist. You need strategies and beliefs that will allow you to persist and persevere, so that you can change. The best strategy is to be focused, and this focus will help you overcome the resistance you face whenever you make an effort to begin changing.
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.
The past does not dictate the future, so you should not use inductive reasoning to make conclusions about your life or career. Recognize when you are making incorrect conclusions based on past events, and switch to deductive reasoning in which you are not limited by the past. You will find your conclusions to be much more accurate, and you will succeed as a result.
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As a last semester student and a law school prospect I have put a ton of effort into super concentration. I have a tendancy to get easily distracted, anxious, and bored. I personally think concentration is one of the most valuable work skills, for me at least.
Great article!!!
Thank you for wasting my time with your unsolicited spam Abd hiding behind your anonymous sites. Do you really think people will flock to you for doing this?
It is very true that, working on Sunday helps in finishing duties that should be done during the week but in the same time you start the next week already tired. Working in Sunday should be at least one or two times per month, no more. Each employer need the weekend to refresh his/her abilities and potential and be able to answer to all requirements during the next week working days. Time management play an important role in organizing and coordinating your activities for the whole week and making sure that you spend the weekend with your family.
Being a Christian, I do not think people should work on Sundays regularly. (Unless they must, but then they should have a different day of relaxation.) I agree with the statement that work should be concentrated on and completed on weekdays. Why waste time doing those things listed above, when you can do those same things on your own time? If I was a employer I would want to fire employees who spent time surfing the web, taking frequent coffee breaks, and daydreaming. On the other hand, a true workaholic who is so tightly wound he or she cannot take a day off is probably going to be looking at serious health problems sometime down the line. What is that saying about a string too tightly wound breaking? The Lord God created us with limits that we do well to respect.
I do agree with your assessment of working on Sundays and let me add weekends. I am worked in too many places were apparent quantative work was the measure not the qualitative as described. The best boss I had was an Austrin that looked down his nose on Americans that worked more time than needed to make points. The comment he made that I will never forget is “Do you live to work or work to Live”. I see people that work on Saturdays and Sundays as not successful, but those with no lives and frankly are very dull people. Please print my name.
Tom Kesoilts
I do agree with your assessment of working on Sundays and let me add weekends. I am worked in too many places were apparent quantative work was the measure not the qualitative as described. The best boss I had was an Austrin that looked down his nose on Americans that worked more time than needed to make points. The comment he made that I will never forget is “Do you live to work or work to Live”. I see people that work on Saturdays and Sundays as not successful, but those with no lives and frankly are very dull people. Please print my name.
Tom Kesoilts