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The single most important trick I use to get myself to make phone calls

My telephone weighs 470 kilograms if I do not pick it up and make a call out by 8:30 in the morning.    I get nervous.  I can’t pick it up.  I make my living calling people and sometimes I just can’t do it.

So I use a rubber band to help pick it up.  I put [...]

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Should I change based on what the HR person told me?

Yes and no.

Human Resource people are phenomenal.  They are almost always honest.  However, they are human. An HR recruiter who is sorting through 100 resumes each day, scheduling 30 appointments for herself this week, and 50 appointments for managers, may cut corners.  You call and ask, “Why won’t you interview me?” She has no clue [...]

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Do you eat the leaves of your job search before the fruit appears?

Woodchucks are evil.  They get in my garden.  They eat the leaves on my strawberry plants and leave the flowers and small green fruit.  Then the flowers and fruit die.  I hate woodchucks.

I sometimes do the same thing figuratively.  I get started in a successful niche in my business, then I turn my hand to [...]

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You should plan your career advancement like a 50 mile hike

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. (Kin Hubbard)

Boys on a 50 mile hike

2 1/2 pounds of trail mix per boy each day for a total of 90 pounds.  3 packages of hamburger helper for one meal for 6 boys.  Oatmeal every day for breakfast for 6 days on the [...]

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Can a kick in the teeth help your career?

You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.  (Walt Disney)

Can you believe Walt Disney said that?  He was such a nice guy!

Many of the happiest people I know were ruined at one point.  Some depressed people were also ruined, [...]

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What do you do while you wait to hear if you are hired?

Here in the USA we wait in lines.  We get upset when someone cuts in front.  So we wait back until it is our turn.  We don’t want to be greedy.

Tim was competing with 3 others for a promotion at EDS.  He was prepared.  He was a good choice.  He told his boss, “I do [...]

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Thrive in a terrible company – row away slowly when you have to

Tim tells me why he has to leave his current company every couple of months.  Then he says he has to stay.  Leadership is lacking.  The work ethic stinks.  His office only stays alive because it is propped up by corporate headquarters.  He and his boss both know what is wrong.  Tim can’t fix it [...]

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Overcome real career problems by using this weakling’s plan

In The Millionaire Mind the success of many German aces is credited to a flyer who had a weak arm, “Paule” Rossmann.  In the days before modern airplanes, brute strength often determined whether fighter pilots stayed in the air or were shot down.  Rossmann had a weak arm and decided he preferred life to a [...]

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2 things that create career luck

IQ experts say that Thomas Jefferson was the smartest man ever born.  I don’t doubt he was brilliant.  He harnessed his brilliance to the ox of hard work.  Without his hard work, that incredible brain would have been wasted.

I am sure there have been many others born who were smarter than Jefferson, no matter what [...]

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Job safety and job ethics

I made a 2 year commitment to the first company that hired me out of college.  I said I would do that job and not quit.  I had a safe job.  I was over educated and working hard. “Safety first,” I thought.  I was happy to make that commitment.  A year into it I got [...]

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