Ruthlessly exploit yourself – 9 good ways

Under capitalism, man exploits man.  Under communism it’s just the opposite. (John Kenneth Galbraith)

My 16 year old daughter just looked at me with big eyes and said, “Daddy, will you take me to school?  You know my foot hurts and I shouldn’t walk on it.”  She used every emotion, trick of voice and heart string she could muster to get me to drive her and her sister a quarter mile to school.  I’ll get back to writing this in a second.  I have a quick errand to run.

I’m back.

As we went out the door Katie said, “I have to practice my feminine wiles for the part I want in the school musical.”

EPHS is doing “Damn Yankees”.  She wants the part of Lola the temptress.  There is a famous song in the musical with the refrain, “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.” Lola does everything she can to get the hero to sell his soul to the devil. She offers herself, but he sells his soul to beat the Yankees.

Don’t do something illegal or immoral to get a job. Sex for a job, lying, blackmail — you know better than that.

Ruthlessly exploiting everything good about your life is not wrong.  Let me give you some things people have said to me that I think are crazy.

You are crazy if you say:

• I will not exploit my family connections to get a job.
• My friends are too close to my heart for me to ask them for help.
• I refuse to use their emotions about my situation.
• Inviting them to lunch is brown nosing and sucking up.
• I won’t tell them I left because I was sick.  I don’t want their sympathy.
• I want the job, but I don’t feel right pressing them to choose me.
• It is greedy asking for more money.
• Taking this job to get experience, when I plan to leave later, is wrong.
• I’m a veteran, but it is not fair to use that to get a job.

Let’s look at that last point.  A few veterans actually forget that the leadership, teamwork, calmness under fire, discipline and fortitude they developed is uncommon.  They feel they just did their duty. No big thing.  Why bring it up?

Your life experience makes a difference.  Whatever that experience is.  You need to use it and exploit it. People connect emotionally and help each other all the time.

Because so many people have a problem ruthlessly using every advantage they have, I’m going to go quickly through most of those bullet points tomorrow.

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