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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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Loading...One of the most inspiring people in American history is Benjamin Franklin. Something that very few people realize is that Franklin also wrote what is arguably one of the best self-improvement books ever written, The Biography of Benjamin Franklin....
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Career Advice
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Too many people approach their job searches from the perspective of their own needs. They need a job, they need to make more money, they need flexible working hours and benefits. This is not the way to get a job. In fact, this “me-too” method of job seeking is unlikely to get you anywhere.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of using association websites in your job search. One of the best places to track down jobs which (1) few people know about and (2) you stand good odds of getting an interview if you apply, is association websites. Associations are not experts in advertising themselves, and so the jobs on their websites are far less likely to be found by people looking for jobs online. The people you are competing with in the job market generally are not researching association websites for job opportunities and leads. Employers typically like posting jobs on association sites because applicants from association sites tend to be serious about their profession. If you are in the job market, using association sites for research is highly recommended.
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.
Job Market
The Dangers of Getting Jobs Through Friends
By Harrison Barnes on Nov 23,2018Despite the obvious advantages, getting jobs through a friend or relative may ultimately harm you. When you do so, you risk lowering your colleagues’ opinions of you, who may see your connections as evidence that you lack the skills to get your position on your own merits. Nonetheless, there are situations in which it is acceptable to take advantage of such connections, but you must be on your guard; make sure that the job you get is a good fit, and one in which you would perform well regardless of your connections.
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Avoid people with a negative worldview, and who are unenthusiastic about their jobs. Their negative energy will rub off on you if you allow it, and you will find yourself experiencing the same negative results and unhappiness as them. Seek out people who are succeeding and doing great things in their careers, and who love what they do. Learn to view your job and surroundings from the light rather than the dark side.
In this article Harrison discusses the reasons why the best executives are so highly paid. According to him the main reason for this is that exceptional executives are rare. A top executive has to make numerous decisions and calculations whilst taking every factor into account each day. There are very few people who have the capacity to organize people, increase productivity and profitability, all while facing criticism and driving a company forward. The survival and prosperity of a company depends on having people who can give good orders – and have them carried out by others. Those who can lead groups typically are the highest paid people inside corporations and groups. The highest paid executives are able to implement and get things done; the lowest paid typically are not able to do this.
Your reactions to the world around you determine your state of mind and your progress in life. While most people tend to blame others for what is happening to them, you must learn to react in a positive way. You must understand that you usually cannot change the people and things around you, but you can control your reactions to these things; when you choose not to react negatively, you open the door to growth and fulfillment.
The secret to a happy career and life is realizing that we too need to love ourselves unconditionally. There is no other choice.
Here are 21 pieces of career advice no one ever gives you from well-known career advice expert and legal recruiter Harrison Barnes.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of keeping one’s job secured, and how external factors affect job security. It is crucial for job seekers to choose the right kind of job, the right kind of organization, and to have the perfect pay-package for enjoying job security to the fullest. Professionals in high positions in an organization are more prone to getting chucked off rather than those in lesser positions. The complexity of an organization also plays a crucial role in hampering or promoting a sense of job security among different workers in an organization. Competitiveness in an industry is also a harbinger of increasing insecurity in jobs, as there is constant push-and-pull with regards to resources.
Your happiness and quality of life depend largely on the meanings that your ascribe to the things around you, so you must communicate with yourself in a way that makes you feel positive, not negative. You must interpret your life’s events in a way that makes you feel good about yourself rather than otherwise.
Concentrate on the process, not the results, in order to succeed in your career. Focus on the entire process of what you are doing, refine each step of that process, and make sure to constantly improve each step. Pay attention to the small, seemingly insignificant details, because they will add up to make a huge difference.
It is important to have high standards. For the most part, life will pay any price you ask of it. The people who achieve the most in the world have incredibly high standards. It is like this with businesses as well. A great piece of machinery, or a great service, is like this because of the standards that are followed.
There are two kinds of people; value creators and value extractors. Your career success will largely depend on your skill at either of these two things. Value extractors prefer an environment where value is already being created, while value creators look for areas of maximum opportunity. While value extractors seek stable careers, value creators seek to build up organizations rather than work within them. You need to decide if you are a value creator or extractor, commit to one or the other, and never look back.
Be the person you want to be; if you see yourself naturally going in a certain direction, then you must allow yourself to go that way. Be grateful for every little thing in your life, and you will position yourself to receive more good things. You must hold the correct mindset to achieve a successful life and career; “get your mind right”, look at the world differently, and get away from your established ways of doing things.
Your perceptions of the world determine your reactions, and your reactions in turn determine your destiny. External factors do not dictate your life and destiny so much as your response to them, which is usually dictates by your emotional state. You must challenge yourself to make the best use of disorder in your life, and use it as a basis to develop a superior kind of order.
The most successful people are often obsessed with and are incredibly knowledgeable about the minutiae of their work. You must concentrate and develop an understanding of the details that others “gloss over” for true happiness and success in your job. When looking for a job, you will find greater success by looking for openings in places that others overlook. Focusing on the small details will, in aggregate, bring you much greater success than focusing on the bigger picture, so start by tending to one detail at a time.
Determining whether you are most interested in information, people, places, or things can help you better understand your career and life priorities. Everyone’s motivation is different, and their motivation places them in one of these categories. These are deep-seated personality types, among which there is no intermingling, and each has its positive and negative points. You must find a work environment in which your natural inclinations and interests are nourished.
In order to reach your full potential, you must avoid depression, obesity and unhealthy foods, boredom, and uninteresting people. Your daily activities should seek to improve in each of these categories; as you do, you will find yourself better equipped to face life’s challenges. Maintain various interests in addition to your work, and try to connect with interesting people to establish a healthy self-esteem.
Imagine you are a doctor working in a small clinic in the suburbs of Chicago. You are surrounded by uninspired doctors who are happy going back and forth to work each day in exchange for a salary. You, in contrast, have no interest in money and are concerned with curing a fatal heart disease. In fact, you have been working on curing this disease for the past 15 years.
There is vast potential beneath the surface of each individual person, and it is the same with the job market. Many people fail in there job search because they only pursue one tactic, find nothing, and conclude that there are no jobs available. When looking for a job, you need to go deep beneath the surface, and exhaust every job board, employer website, and other possible avenue in order to get ahead.
It is important to establish rules for yourself that empower rather than frustrate you; creating rules about your goals prevents you from finding fulfillment in your current situation. Rules create the impression that your life is imperfect, and you will never find happiness in your life and career. Instead, make sure you have rules that motivate you to move forward rather than hold you back.
Ranking people, assets, opportunities, etc. is one of the most powerful practices that you can implement. Ranking people against one another motivates them to grow, improve, and get progressively at what they do. Ranking naturally motivates people to improve, and companies who fail to do so often find themselves mired in mediocrity. Many people, however, mistakenly avoid rankings and the implied judgment of their abilities. You must use rankings as a means of escaping your protective shell and seeing the truth about yourself and your situation.
In this article Harrison discusses why emotional connections are so important in the workplace. In virtually every company, there are people who are not needed at all but are kept in the jobs due to some emotional connection. In every industry when layoffs occur, generally the first to go are those who do not have an emotional connection to the organization. According to Harrison there is a huge value attached to having emotional connections in your job. The holiday party, invitations to spend time with your boss outside of work, and other similar occasions are extremely important because they are a chance to form an emotional connection with the people you are working with. The emotional connection will take you farther and will last longer than any other sort of connection.
Salesmanship is one of the most important skills you can have in your job hunt. You can use personality as a means of standing out and selling yourself, making sure that it comes through in everything you are doing. By injecting personality into your job search, you will soon notice changes in your life and career. People with personality succeed in sales because they draw attention; employers want to hire people with personalities, and a good personality can be your best job hunting tool.
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.
Rather than committing to a career, many people switch jobs and take positions that require completely different skill sets; consequently, they never truly master their primary skills. While there is nothing wrong with changing careers, you must find something and devote yourself to it; many people have succeeded in relatively simple jobs, because they have committed to and mastered their craft. Develop a specialized interest, nurture it, and continually improve at it, and you will find the universe rewarding you.
Being present is crucial to your career’s success and longevity. The more that you are present in your career, the more valuable you will be to your employer, and thus the more likely you will be to keep your job. Employers want commitment and presence in their employees, and those possessing such attributes will always prevail over those who do not.
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.
Be supportive of those around you; the more you do this, the more successful you will be in your work and life. In terms of your career, you need to constantly add value and focus on adding more to your organization than you take. Use your learning to constantly seek new forms of revenue generation and support your company’s growth.
Many people have intuitions about areas in which they would like to improve or things that they would like to avoid. Your intuition is usually correct, and trusting it can help you avoid bad things that might befall others who ignore their intuition. People are all aware, on some level, of the things holding them back, but few people are willing to acknowledge and address these things. Knowledge of your weaknesses and what you should do about them comes from your intuition.
Ignoring obstacles and setbacks will take you extremely far in life. The quality of your life will depend on how you deal with life’s inevitable setbacks and the intimidation of others. Develop an unconquerable spirit that disregards life’s setbacks, and you will experience massive success. Get up on time, and keep persisting when other people quit in order to achieve your goals
When you are a commodity, you can be replaced on a whim and have no value beyond anyone else in the market. Do something that differentiates you from others. When you are unique, you are no longer someone whom employers can easily find on the open market and your value will increase. Establish yourself as irreplaceable due to your unique skills. Understand your employers’ needs and desired direction in order to create value for them.
Karma, or the universal idea that you reap what you so, governs your career and your life; the karma that you create in the world determine most of the events in your life. Understanding and accepting this universal law empowers you to take control of your life, because you directly control what happens to you. The amount and type of energy that you put into your life will always return to you in kind.
