In this article Harrison discusses the importance of encouragement. If you look at most successful people, somewhere in their background there is someone cheering for them and believing in what they can accomplish. When people take the time to encourage and believe in us, they are giving us one of the greatest gifts we can receive. When we believe in people and what they are capable of accomplishing, it can change their lives. Consequently, these people rise to a higher level of achievement than what they might have experienced without our involvement. We become a voice in the background, whispering words of encouragement into their ears. Make others better off in the world by virtue of having met you, and having related to you. Your goal should be to make the world a better place, and it all starts with making sure you encourage others.
Your success will largely depend on the extent to which you can handle frustration and rejection. In fact, you need to become an expert at failure, because you can learn so much from the experience. The more you are rejected, the closer you bring yourself to eventual success. Never give up, remember that the law of averages is working in your favor, and keep pushing through towards success. Set aside your emotions and negative feelings about rejection.
One of the biggest mistakes people make in their job searches is going after jobs in sophisticated markets. A sophisticated and saturated market is one that’s populated by a lot of people like you—with your qualifications, background, and so forth.
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In this article, Harrison explains how the dissolution of a company as prominent as Heller Ehrman, should change the way you look at litigation and settlement. Litigation is an expensive and lengthy process, and should be avoided as much as possible. Lawyers need to understand that litigation is not always necessary and that settlement is what clients would prefer and therefore should work towards saving their clients’ valuable time and money.
People tend to be either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic; your own identity as one of these three things can determine much about your life, from the people with whom you get along to the environment in which you are most comfortable. People base most of their decisions upon their perceptions, which in turn depend on which of these three orientations they are. To succeed, you should not mix motivations among individuals.
In the legal recruiting realm, a recruiter typically needs to introduce a candidate to more than one law firm in order to get the candidate an interview. You could have a candidate at the top of their class from Harvard Law School practicing at one of the ten largest firms in the United States and they could be rejected by numerous law firms. Why?
In his article, Harrison talks about how hope is the element central to most of our circumstances. We may buy medicines to heal a particular physical problem, but what we are actually buying is hope; the hope that we will get better after using that medicine. It works in much the same way for job seekers and recruiters as well. When you present your credentials to a prospective employer, you offer hope in the form of your qualifications and experience. Harrison says it is important to convey hope in a job interview, because eventually it is only hope that the recruiter will use as a benchmark when choosing one candidate over another. Depending on how you see it, you as a job seeker can offer the recruiter a definite hope to improve his or her situation.
Life is all about the opposite extremes of light and darkness, and your likelihood of success directly correlates to the time you spend focused on the light and the positive. Every situation and emotion has its corresponding opposite. Do everything in your power to stay connected to the light, positive side of life, the more you do so, the more you become like the light. Maintain contact with the things that are good, positive, and uplifting in your life, and do everything in your power to avoid the dark.
In this article Harrison explains how you can ensure success in your career by externalizing your opponents. Your job is like a game; if you work hard, play by the rules of the company and are seen as part of the team you will be viewed as a valuable player for the company. The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. Never speak negatively of your team members. Instead, concentrate on the external opponents. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work towards a common goal. In order for you and your company to succeed it is important to have an external opponent. Harrison advises people to consistently work hard and not participate in the politics. This is a sure way to score big in your career.
True self-esteem comes from within, not from the acceptance of others. When your sense of worth comes from within, you free yourself from comparisons with others and will enjoy a greater sense of internal security. You will no longer be bogged down by the experiences of others and can become much more self-reliant.
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.
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.
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.
Everyone tries to maintain a certain emotional state, and learning to control your own emotions will have a profound impact on your career. While everyone allows their emotional states to be influenced by outside events, there is no advantage in basing your own emotions on things that you cannot control. Allow yourself to discover happiness and fulfillment naturally, rather than making your emotions dependant on external circumstances. Your outlook will have a tremendous impact on your psychological health, as well as that of those around you.
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