Articles - Page 32 of 35

Focus on ONE Thing

My cat, Kat, loves to play angry birds.

Her favorite toy is an angry birds wand, which is a thin plastic stick with an elastic string attached to an angry birds plush toy.

She is so into her toy that just by waving the wand and ringing its bell, she will run from the other side of the house to stalk down the angry bird.

From there she is absolutely 100% focused on her goal, except when I do one thing.

If i pick up another wand and I wave two angry birds at the same time, not knowing whether to chase the one in my left or right hand, she remains paralyzed.

Us humans are much the same way.

Give us a goal, give us a clear target and us hard striving folks will run it down 100%, but often when we lack a goal, we fail to make progress.

Also, like Kat confused by two birds moving at the same time, when we have too many things to focus on, we can fail to get chasing down any of them.

The solution with Kat is to put down the other wand and give her one goal, and the same is true for us humans.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, STOP.

Step back and recognize that even if you have ten things on your plate that you only ever have one thing you are focused on right now.

Then, as you complete the one thing you are doing, pick up the next and do the same.

Focused 100% on what you are doing right now, not only do you stop being overwhelmed, but you are also operating at peak performance.

In this zone, you will drive better results, and like Kat playing with her angry birds toy, you’ll be having much more fun too!!!

The Octopus and The Beast

Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch has a skill that is of great value.

They call him “Beast Mode” because once he gets moving he’s near impossible to stop.

Watch him in any play, and you’ll see with one, two, even three tackles on him, he just keeps stepping.

In the statistic “Yards after contact,” Lynch not only dominates the league, but nearly every other running back in NFL history.

He’s a difficult man to drag down, and this is just one of his sources of value, what I call a Tentacle of Value.

Tentacles of Value

If you can imagine, like an octopus with its eight tentacles, to win in your career, you want to have multiple ways to crush it!

This requires knowing what is valued in your career and being able to do it.

In the NFL nothing is more valued than yards, and Marshawn’s skill to keep driving forward is highly valued, but this isn’t enough to win on the field.

In addition to driving yards, Lynch must create value by being a safe pair of hands and creating an opening in the defense, among other tentacles of value.

The same is true in every career.

What Are Your Tentacles of Value?

In my old business of investment banking driving revenues is the equivalent of driving yards and your tentacles of value include the ways you do it.

But even then, driving revenues is only part of the game, and if you want to win, you must define your unique tentacles of value that enable you to build comparative advantage.

This requires stepping back, determining what is valued in your career, identifying where you win, and building your skills to do it.

This is just one thing my book, Do What You Want on Wall Street, is designed to help you do.

Just Do IT!

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s hacker motto is, “Move fast and break things.”

LinkedIn CEO, Reid Hoffman says, “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.”

My friend, a highly sought after coach says, “Take massive imperfect action and improve as you move.”

Avoid The Fatal Mistake…

Having created some far less-than-perfect products, and just launched the ninth version of wallstreetteach.com, I firmly grasp the power of getting moving.

If you are doing something new, just get started, get moving, take action.

It is inevitable you will make mistakes, but you will avoid the most fatal mistake.

The number one reason most people fail to get what they want is they never get started.

Endlessly thinking about the things that they want to do, they fail to just do it.

Keep Doing It Till You Get What You Want

Like Nike has proven, there is enormous power in just doing it.

When you just do it, you get moving.

And when you get moving, you build momentum.

And when you build momentum, you feel empowered.

And when you feel empowered, you keep taking action.

And when you keep taking action, it is inevitable that you are moving closer to what you want.

97% Of People Are Focused On The Wrong Things

To most couch potatoes, the commercials are what you put up with to watch the entertaining content.

But to advertisers, the content is just what keeps your attention while they sell to you.

The content is the vehicle, but selling is the goal.

The best investment bankers know they are salespeople, but most resist this idea for two reasons.

First, almost all of us have been conditioned to have a negative connotation to selling.

Having recently bought a car I was reminded why, but excellent salespeople aren’t like that.

They are more like people who are excellent at becoming friends with their clients, and then helping their friends achieve their goals.

The second reason most investment bankers resist the idea they are salespeople is they are still living under the illusion that investment banking is about doing deals.

No it’s not. Investment banking isn’t about doing deals.

It is a deal business.

Doing deals is the service a banker performs, but it is selling deals that drives the business.

Those who don’t understand the distinction don’t go very far.

The same is true on the buy-side.

Most of us get into the business of investing because we want to be investors.

But the difference between being a great investor and being great at building an investing business is like the 3% difference between you and an Orangutan.

I know an incredibly successful investor who has generated 20%+ IRRs for nearly a decade, but he still only manages $80 million.

You don’t build a great investment business by being a great investor, but by being great at accumulating and maintaining capital.

The distinction might seem small, but the difference is enormous.

It means almost every single hardworking person will keep diddling away doing what they think is their business, never achieving a great deal.

3, 2, 1, Lift Off!

The hardest thing about reaching the stars is getting off the ground.

Perched vertically on the pad, the last of the U.S. space shuttle fleet to fly a mission, Atlantis, was twenty times the weight of the craft that returned back to earth.

Strapped to two solid rocket boosters and its external fuel tank, like a flea on the back of a dog, the shuttle is dwarfed by its transportation system.

On its own Atlantis weighs around 165,000 pounds, but fully loaded, with each of its two solid rocket boosters weighing 185,000 pounds and carrying 1.1 million pounds of fuel and its external fuel tank weighing 78,000 pounds and filled with 1.6 million pounds of fuel, sitting on the pad pointed towards the heavens, Atlantis weighs some 4.5 million pounds.

The reason of course is the tremendous amount of thrust that is required to clear gravity and once the external rockets which provide 70% of the thrust have done their job, within two minutes of launch they are cut loose, and using its three rocket boosters Atlantis positions itself in orbit for the remainder of its mission.

Hence, almost all of the heavy lifting is done in the first couple of minutes and from there the shuttle is gliding in the endless expanse of zero gravity.

The same is true with setting yourself on course for getting what you want.

In the early stages it can require a lot of heavy lifting.

You are beginning to get your mind around different ways of thinking and taking actions, thinking carefully about what you want, developing your process for getting it, and thinking about how you build yourself into the person who can do it.

Like Atlantis, all this heavy lifting is required just to get you launching in the right direction, and it can take a significant amount of lift just to get yourself on course.

This is where most people fail, and worse, they give up.

But if you persist and keep building momentum, soon you discover that your heavy lifting has blasted you off in the right direction, and like a black hole gobbling up stars as it expands, simply by continuing to take steps you are quickly building the momentum you need to finish your mission.

This isn’t to say that the path to getting what you want ever gets easy, but like exploring space, if it were easy, would it be worth it?

The ONLY Freedom

You might be oblivious to it right now, but when you begin training your mind it becomes as obvious as waking up to a jackhammer next to your bed.

You’re lying there unconscious, peacefully sleeping, and then you wake up, and it begins:

THE MIND STARTS WHIRLING

Thoughts begin flooding in. You might start thinking about your dreams. Or things from yesterday. Or things you need to do today. Or things related to your future or past or more likely things that are completely irrelevant to your past, present, or future.

Like a tornado, the mind is turning, picking up everything in its path, and there is no stopping it now.

This is normal.

In our society this is considered a normal way of being, these minds of ours incessantly turning, never stopping.

Like a constant stream of 140 character verbal diarrhea, nearly every waking hour we are bombarded with noise.

Talk to “normal” people about mediation or heaven forbid hypnosis and they look at you like you have a third eye.

Accustomed to walking around with a jackhammer in our heads, it is not until we begin training our minds that we see just how abnormal it is.

Like a person who has lived their entire life next to a construction site, when you practice quieting that noisy machine inside your head, you will begin to understand the only true definition of freedom.

When I was a kid I thought money was freedom. Then I thought freedom required both time and money.

Today i know the ONLY true freedom is peace of mind.

Avoid People Like The News

Us humans love drama.

We pretend we don’t, but really, can you imagine how lost we would be without all this drama in the world?

We pretend to despise violence and killing and war, yet our world is full of it.

In our media, all day every day, we are bombarded with the worst of humanity.

We pretend that keeping up to date with all the misery of the world is being informed but of course us humans simply enjoy the mayhem like a pig enjoys rolling around in its own shit.

After all, if you can’t get your fill of drama from the reporting of the real world, you can tune in to the 95% of what us humans call entertainment which is dedicated to violence and killing and war.

While to a sane person it might seem odd that these things we pretend to despise are the same things we tune into for entertainment, in our world this is considered normal.

The same is true for many people in their careers.

With almost two-thirds of people dis-satisfied in their jobs, all day every day the majority of people love creating drama in their career.

They complain about how they are getting paid or working long hours or how they don’t love what they do.

They whine about how their boss does this or their customer does that or how the colleague down the hall does a certain thing that makes them feel a certain way.

Hours of their day they love being absorbed in their problems, before going home and reporting to their spouse and their friends, happily dragging everyone else into the drama of their career.

Yet, every day, every week, every year, often for decades of their life, they show up for more of the same.

If you ask them what they are doing to change their career they will tell you all the reasons the world is the way it is and how there is nothing they can do to change it.

Avoid these people like the news.

Stop letting the drama of their world become yours.

Anxiety or Excitement, YOU Decide!

Looking ahead to the new year my client had himself worried sick.

Over the break, going to bed thinking about all the things he wants to achieve this year, he could barely sleep.

Waking up during the night, while trying to get back to sleep his mind would take off faster than a one night stand.

Yesterday, his first day back at work, he woke up extra early.

Waking up in the middle of the night tossing and turning, unable to get back to sleep, he decided to just get up and get to the office early.

Brushing his teeth, thinking about all the things he needs to get done this year his mind was turning.

Backing out of the driveway and driving to work it was more of the same, so by the time he reached the office he was wound up tight like a knotted muscle.

When we spoke early today, not surprisingly, he told me he was feeling a little overwhelmed about the year ahead.

“No shit,” I said to him, “With all that thinking about all the things you want to do this year you have a lot on your mind.”

I continued, “But what is surprising to me is that you aren’t feeling absolutely ecstatic about it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

And that’s when I busted it out on him.

I asked him, “Do you know the difference between anxiety and excitement?”

“What do you mean?” he repeated.

I said, “The only difference is one is done by a pessimist and the other by an optimist.”

They are both the same thought process: Looking forward into the future, imagining it being a certain way.

The only difference is while a pessimist might look ahead and create anxiety for the future, an optimist looks ahead and gets excited for what is to come.

From there we were done.

We had broken this pattern of thinking that had haunted him for weeks and he was feeling excited about the new year.

We were done. But I wasn’t.

I feel deeply for my clients and as we left the call I found myself wishing I could have done more for him sooner.

If only he had reached out to me I could have enabled him to much more enjoy his time off with his family, but given my DeLorean is in the shop, there is nothing I can do about that now.

All I can do is spread the word!!!

Up Or Out?

I bet I hold the record for the fastest post-bonus resignation in Carlyle history.

I can’t know for sure, but given I resigned some twenty minutes after it hit my bank account, I’m betting nobody else has me beat.

About nine years ago today when I quit Goldman I was even quicker to the trigger.

A week before my bonus was paid, I walked into the corner office and resigned.

At the time and in hindsight it seemed like a stupid thing to do, but it also felt right.

A few weeks earlier I had been co-chief cheer leader, co-hosting the entertainment for the annual investment banking conference.

I had wanted to tell them: “Wait, I’d prefer not to do this as I am resigning in the new year,” but that’s a dumb thing to do in September.

But when the new year rolled around and everyone was getting fired up about planning for the year ahead, it felt wrong for me to fake it for another week.

The firm and my bosses had been good to me, I wanted to do the right thing by them, and I assumed they would do the right thing by me.

And, of course, it was more than that too.

Even though I was fast to the trigger, I had been figuring out my career for more than five years, and I had places to go and things to do.

Years earlier I’d concluded that my work was about either getting to the top or getting out, and it was time for me to get out.

The same was true at Carlyle.

I pulled the trigger quickly after my bonus hit my account, but I had known for 95% of my tenure when I would resign.

There’s a lot to be said for a fast exit, but I always suggest it comes after slow and careful planning.

UP or OUT? Which are you planning?

Looking Backwards, Forwards, NOW

I have been trying to write to you about looking back on the year you have had, but it just isn’t flowing.

I think because I was trying to write to you about something that I personally am not doing.

I am not doing a lot of looking back on 2014, nor am I doing a lot of looking forward to 2015, I am focused on a different point in time.

In Vail I have been doing a massive amount of personal development, and in particular I have been focused on training myself to be more present in the now.

I’ve taken my goals and planning that was focused way out in the future and collapsed it into simply being absorbed in taking the one action I am taking now, knowing it will lead to the next action.

And I’ve been training my mind to think less and be more.

Not all zen-like, sitting around cross-legged, but by practicing being absorbed in what I am doing right now.

So if I am skiing, I am just skiing.

I’m not thinking about the last bump or next bump or last run or next run, or anything else my mind might automatically wander to, I am just fully absorbed in my skiing.

If I am typing, I am feeling my fingers on the keys, seeing the words on the screen, fully absorbing myself in the experience in this moment.

It is not easy to do and it takes practice, yet in all my years of work, this is one topic that I have come to believe matters most to living well.

Training yourself to be in this moment is training yourself to be fully absorbed in what you are doing, which opens the doorway for peak experiences in your life.

It is a state for peak performance.

When you are in this moment, you are in the same state in which an athlete is in the zone, you are just right here, 100% focused, performing at your best in this moment.

This so-called Flow state is also a peak state for happiness, because, it is here, absorbed in what you are doing, you are completely full in your experience.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

There is some activity that you have where your mind just stops turning and you become fully absorbed in the experience of what you are doing.

For some it is running. Or skiing. Or yoga. Or martial arts. Or presenting. Or reading. Or tennis. Or climbing. It is in this moment where your mind fades away and you are just absorbed in doing what you are doing.

It feels good, doesn’t it?

This has been my main focus over the last month, taking everything I have learned on these topics, and building the practices to keep deepening my skill of being present.

It is one thing to look back on this year and celebrate it, or look forward to next and see all we might do, but in the end, this moment in time is all we can ever experience.

And the best times of every year you can experience right here, right now.

Do it now.

Pick just one experience you loved this year and go back into it. Where are you? Who is there? What are you doing? Really re-experience it fully as though it is happening now. You might even take five minutes to fully indulge in this experience.

You can do this again and again and again, enjoying it more each time, yet you can only ever do it now.

You can never go back in time but you can always right now re-experience your best times.

And the more you do this, it becomes automatic in you, so you don’t need to wait until the end of the year to think back on your year, but at a deeper level you automatically keep reminding yourself of your best times that are happening in the past and now.

The same is true with your future.

Whatever it is you see yourself doing next year, you will only ever be experiencing in that moment. In this moment you can plan and think about that experience, but if you are always planning and thinking about the future, when are you fully experiencing the moment?

It is like looking from the stage of a crowded rock concert and seeing all those people out there filming you on a small screen.

They are at the concert right now, in full living sound and color and they can fully experience it right now, or they can be there filming it so they can post it so other people will know they were there filming it so they can post it so other people will know they were there.

All we have is this moment in time. This is all we ever have.

With your kids right now. One day they will be grown and gone and living their busy lives, and maybe stopping by when they have time.

Your spouse. One day they will dead.

How much are you loving them now? Really, when you look in their eyes, how present are you? How much are you absorbed in them, like you might wish you were the day after they are gone.

Every moment is all we have. Good or bad or indifferent, it matters a whole bunch less when you are fully absorbed in this moment.

Now, with all this said, this doesn’t mean you give up on planning, sell your Ferrari, and sit around cross-legged.

It means you keep looking to the future, creating your grandest vision for your career and life, and be absorbed in taking your current step that is leading you there.

So you keep planning and you stay disciplined building and working your process, but at every moment in time your focus is on being fully absorbed in what you are doing right now.

This way you are staying in the present, living in Flow, yet you keep making progress towards the goals that truly matter to you.

Doing this, you might look back on this year and ask yourself questions like:

What were my happiest moments?
What did I do that enabled me to make progress on the goals that matter to me?
How did I win? Where did I fail? What would I have done differently?
How did I grow? How did I become happier or better or more skilled at living?
What was the hardest thing I did? Where did I wimp out versus really going for it?

And looking forward to next year you might ask questions like:

What is my grandest vision and my clear goals for 2015?
Looking back at this point next year, how do I want to feel about my year?
If I am to feel this way, what must I be able to see myself doing?
How will the key processes I built in 2014 keep working for me next year?
What one skill if I could learn would make the most difference?

Then, set your goals, set your process, and become absorbed in taking the current step you are taking right now.

Years ago when I turned pro, on my first client “coin,” on one side I had etched an image of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and one of his powerful ideas:

“A life well spent is long.”

It is not as important on how we are looking backwards and forwards on our years, but on how much we are now fully absorbed in living.

Happy Holidays!

I don’t know what to wish on the holidays, as we all like to do different things.

All I can hope is you are doing what you want!!

Are You Working?

When they find out I am living at my place in Vail skiing every day, some people ask me: “Are you working?”

Of course I am working.

I haven’t taken a day off work this century, although I do benefit from having a squishy definition of work: My work is my life and my life is my work, which means I am always focused on these topics.

I only work with a small number of clients on retainer, so it is easy for me to keep up with my regular calls. And with the majority of my clients outside of New York, it matters little where I am.

Facing the snow-covered Rockies, I am writing two shifts a day, but most of the work I am doing is getting better.

See, here’s the thing.

When I tell people what I do, some skeptics ask: “Why can’t I just do that myself?” And I say, “You can, but I wouldn’t be any good at my job if I only brought you the same tools and skills that you already have.”

You see it is essential that I bring my clients the most advanced tools and that requires I must keep getting better and better at mastering my craft.

That means I am reading a few books a week and training video and audio programs, including while I ski. Then, on lifts, I’m putting to work many of the tools I am learning, and practicing training the skills.

For instance, last week I was studying an audio program on rapid reframing techniques, which are ways of quickly turning around someone’s language to get them thinking differently.

On the lifts I have been practicing this tool, playing with the people I meet, applying just one idea: Reframing anyone who is longing for more snow.

So when someone says to me, “I’m hoping we get more snow,” I say to them, “yeah, that would be great, what would that do for you?”

They might say, “I just love getting out there when there’s a bunch of fresh snow,“ and I might “echo” them by saying, “yeah, so you love getting out there when there’s a bunch of fresh snow,” and they say, “yeah,” and I say: “Imagine how much you would be loving today if there was a bunch of fresh snow?”

Then, to let that idea sink in, I distract their attention and talk about something random for a minute or so. Finally, right before we de-lift I ask them how it feels today imagining you are skiing fresh snow? They laugh. My work is done.

You see, what I have done with a few questions is get their brain to see that what they have right now feels different when they are thinking about it different.

Rather than making a great day seem sub-par, you can make it feel like the greatest day on earth by choosing different thoughts.

This to me is working. It is community service. It is my public service to help skiers much more enjoy their day.

It’s not a hard job, but somebody has to do it!

That I am obsessed with my work, I love to be engaged in these ideas 24/7, and I can do it on my terms, when I want, where I want, including on Gondola One, only makes my job all the better!

Build Yourself Into a Monster

Lindsay Vonn is a monster on skis.

With four World Cup championships and as the first American woman to win an Olympic Gold medal in downhill, she has become the face of U.S. alpine racing.

As a world-class athlete, you readily surmise that she has built herself to win. Any top athlete must begin with the right genetics, she came out of the factory that way, but so did millions of other people.

She must have been gifted with opportunity. She needed to start training young enough and be lucky enough to have the right environment, parents, and coaches to foster her development and train her skills.

That might get you a long way, but what sets apart a champion is still something different.

It isn’t that she is out there training six days a week, six hours a day in the off-season!

Or that she is constantly training her technique for speed and efficiency.

Or that she fuels her body and trains her mind for winning.

Or even that she risks her life and limb skiing to exceed her limits.

The secret to her success is still something different.

It is, like hand-building a Ferrari piston-by-piston, stitch-by-stitch, Lindsay Vonn has dedicated her life to building herself to be the fastest woman on skis.

While it is obvious that building yourself into the person who can be win is an essential component to competing at the highest levels in sports, it is also the same for all success.

In my career books, I call this Starting With You. This means, before you focus on what you must to do get what you want, instead start by focusing on who you must become.

This I call people building. It is building you into the monster you need to become to get what you want.

Remember The Name

If you are fascinated with the mind you will love Derren Brown.

A famous British mentalist and performer he has produced some of the most memorable feats of mind control and illusion.

He once fooled a live TV audience to believe he was playing a real, deadly game of Russian roulette. In another show, using tools of covert influence, he got a nice young lad to admit to a murder that didn’t take place and he didn’t commit!

His work is that advanced, yet what you see reading his book Tricks of The Mind is how much he relies on basic techniques.

For instance, Derren dedicates nearly 15% of his book to teaching memory techniques, including how to remember names.

While many people would like to be better at remembering names, few of us have been taught how easily you can use basic techniques.

Like you once might have learned a nifty linking rhyme to remember the 50 states of America, here is just one powerful three-step method to remembering names:

Repeat back the person’s name, to help it gel a little.
Associate their name to some type of mnemonic. For instance, when you meet someone named John you associate them to your friend John. Or you might associate them to, well, visiting the john. Or any association that you like.
Link your mnemonic to this person in particular.

For example, today I met Larry.

I said, “nice to meet you, Larry.” While doing that I automatically know my mnemonic is Larry the Cable guy who I imagine yelling in his ear for a while, before Larry turns around and they get into a hysterical biff.

Now, here is the thing, the artistry is all in Step 3, in how well you link back your mnemonic to the person you are meeting. Conveniently, your memory best remembers memorable events, so you want to make the connection as memorable as it can be.

When you study people who are excellent at what they do, you generally find they are exceptional at doing the basic things.

Magic is preparation mixed with artistry and when you practice this approach you will be magical at remembering names.

The Reality Is…

Ahead of an important series of meetings this week my client had been creating a fairly bleak reality.

He knew he would be spending a lot of time with a particularly difficult fellow and he imagined himself being frustrated for much of the week.

So I asked him: “Would you like to change your reality?” Confused, he said, “That’s the reality,” to which I replied, “No, it is what you have made it to be.”

OK. Now, look, here’s the thing about reality. There is no such thing! There is only your individual subjective perception of reality.

Is today hot or cold? Well, it all depends on whether you grew up in Antarctica or somewhere that isn’t freezing. Right? It is all relative to your experience of what is hot or cold.

The same is true for most everything in your life in that your perception of reality is simply the result of your experiences and thoughts.

To test your reality, you simply ask one question: How do you know?

So I asked my client, how do you know this fellow is particularly difficult?

He scoffed, “Well, because he is always that way.” “Always?” I asked.

BINGO!

Quickly he recalled that actually the last time he was with this fellow, he was quite pleasant.

So, having gotten him to change his reality and begin to think perhaps this time too he will be quite pleasant, I went back to the second argument in his original statement.

I picked up on his cause and effect relationships that: Being with a difficult person would make him frustrated.

I asked him, “How do you know that being with someone difficult will make you frustrated? Are you the sort of person who lets how other people behave affect how you feel?”

He responded, “Well sometimes.” So I asked him, “Can you think of a time when you were with someone who was difficult but you were still having a great time?” After close to two decades of being a parent, he agreed he had plenty of examples!

So I asked him, “If time with this fellow is as pleasant as last time and irrespective of how someone else is behaving you know you can feel great, can you imagine how this week might feel different to how it did before?”

Of course his reality had changed. Not because anything “factual” had changed, but because he began to look at things differently.

And what is the benefit? He feels much better about the week ahead, he will much more enjoy his week, and seeing him differently he will most certainly be far more effective with this other fellow.

So, next time you hear, “That’s the reality,” ask, “How do you know?”

Be Careful What You Wish For

Perusing a local Tibetan market a young man discovers an ornate bottle.

Curious, he turns to the old man inside the stall and asks, “How much?”

With a worried look, the old man replies, “Oh, sir, you wouldn’t want that.”

“What do you mean?” asks the young man.

“That is a magic bottle, and the genie inside will fulfill all of your wishes, but you might not want that,” says the old man.

Overcome with delight, the young man says, “So with this bottle all my wishes will come true. Of course I want that.”

While carefully wrapping the magic bottle, the old warns him again, “The genie will grant you all of your wishes, but you may wish you had never asked.”

As soon as he gets home, wasting no time, following the old man’s instructions, the young man summons the genie.

To his shock, the genie emerges.

“Master, what wish can I grant you?” proudly states the genie.

“Secure the land and build me a beautiful palace over there on the nearby hills,” requests the young man.

A moment later the genie returns: “It is done Master. What wish can I grant you now?”

“How about a big pile of money?” asks the young man.

Shazam! Right next to him the money appears.

For a week this goes on, until one day the young man has had enough.

All of his wishes have been granted, yet the genie just keeps annoyingly standing there asking, “What wish can I grant you now, Master?”

Even when he wishes the genie to just disappear, moments later he shows up again, nagging at him, “What wish can I grant you now, Master?”

Finally, he goes back to the old man and pleads with him: “I have everything I could wish for, but with the genie constantly nagging at me, I have no time to enjoy what I have. Please, please, old man, what can I do?”

Sometimes you need to take a break from wishing for more to appreciate and enjoy what you already have.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's to the Losers

Scanning the list of newly minted Goldman Sachs partners I had mixed emotions.

Seeing some familiar names I was delighted for those who made it, but I was disappointed for those who didn’t, particularly one buy-sider.

When I spoke to him he was devastated. Frustrated. Angry. Upset. Experiencing every emotion that comes with giving your best and failing.

But that didn’t stop me from vigorously congratulating him and suggesting a celebration is in order.

Surprised, he asked: “What do you mean? We failed, I didn’t get my result, you don’t get half your fee, what is there to be celebrating?”

“We are celebrating giving it your best shot. We are celebrating the tremendous progress you have made taking your career to another level. We are celebrating who you have become in striving for a goal that was out of reach.” I responded.

Michael Jordan said, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” And that is exactly how my client thinks.

I first met with him eighteen months ago when I was stationed in London for a couple of months we began kicking around the idea of whether he might make partner this year.

It was an outside shot. Far from being a lay-up, it wasn’t even a long three-pointer, it was more like standing at center court throwing the ball backwards over your head hoping to land the shot.

Having been promoted quickly to managing director, it was highly unlikely he would be promoted quickly to partner. At first he estimated he had a 10% probability of success, and as we talked it over we thought we could get it to 25%, perhaps a 50-50 shot.

So I asked him, “Is that worth it?”

“Absolutely” he said, “I have never been the tortoise and I want to do everything I can to accelerate my career.”

And that’s what we did.

Unleashing all the angles, driving the three tracks you can learn more about in The Guide, we focused on his external track—building commercial success—his internal track—influencing the firm—and his development track, building him into the best he can be.

It takes guts to train your sights on what you truly want, especially when the odds are stacked against you. Yet often, it is not a matter of whether you succeed, but whether you are even in the game.

It is easy to hang back and take what comes to you. It easy to make up excuses as to why it wasn’t your year, yet there is no greater reward than going after a hard goal and seeing who you become in the process.

And although my clients don’t always get the results they want, particularly when we are targeting a low probability outcome, even when they lose, they still win.

If you are buying a security you want multiple ways you can win on your investment, and we designed our process knowing that if he didn’t make partner, he would still win.

By taking his game to an entirely different level, and elevating his stature in the industry, this year he received a number of lucrative job offers. Also, based on his incredible performance this year he will certainly receive a sizeable boost in comp.

Of course this is a consolation prize for the goal he failed to reach, yet when you go after it in your career your consolation prize can be a far better outcome than those who simply fail to reach.

As Norman Vincent Peale said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

In our society we celebrate success, yet those hard-charging losers who give it their best shot against the odds are just as surely winners to me.

Bonus Season Likely To Disappoint

Catching that headline in Dealbook, I thought, “what’s new?”

Bonus season always disappoints most people on Wall Street. It is only a question of whether this bonus season will disappoint you.

Now here’s the thing about disappointment: It takes adequate planning.

And while many people might be planning to be disappointed, how many people have been planning their strategy for getting paid?

Candidly, for most people it is already too late. If you haven’t been thinking ahead and laying the groundwork for getting paid, it is likely there is little you can do at this point.

Sure, you might be able to deploy a tactic or two here and there, but the best strategy for getting paid (and promoted for that matter) is to be planting and watering the seeds every day of the year.

It’s like the way an expert at seduction approaches a date. Whereas the average chump waits till he is dropping a woman off at her door to try and plant a kiss or negotiate his way inside, the expert is setting it up from the minute they meet.

Touching her innocently building intimacy, using emotionally-laden language, talking about unique and funny things back at his place, he’s subtly building expectations of where he expects the date to end.

You want to do the same if you are serious about getting paid.

Rather than waiting till the end of the year to make your push, you want to be sowing the seeds of what you are worth at the beginning of the year.

For instance, early in the year you might sit with your boss and say something like:

“This year I’m incredibly focused on doing everything I can to drive the business and deliver enormous value to the firm, and I would love your thoughts on ways you think I can keep driving the business this year.”

This is an example of what I call “Feed-forward,” which means, rather than wait for feedback at the end of the year, instead at the beginning and all the way throughout the year, feed-forward your expectations and performance.

This is easy to do when you are constantly planning your actions, and although this might seem like one random idea for getting paid, in fact, this is one part of the formula to building what I call a directed career.

A directed career means: know what you want and build your system for getting it. This is the entire purpose of The Guide.

It is the only book you will ever need for getting what you want in your career.

Get Paid

It’s comp season, how do you play it?

Do you keep your head down, make it clear you are happy to take whatever you are paid?

Do you walk into your boss’ office, guns blazing, holding them to ransom, demanding more?

Do you play Oliver Twist, all pathetic, bowl out, hoping they throw you a few more crumbs?

Do you have another approach you employ?

Some of the most successful folks I know on Wall Street never do anything to influence their comp because they figure if you do a good job your firm will take care of you. And while that works phenomenally well for some people, for others it is a perfect formula for being under-paid year after year.

What works for you and what works in your firm is particular, yet one thing is for sure, unless you take it into your own hands, you will be at the mercy of your firm to pay you however they choose.

In my book, Do What You Want on Wall Street, I share with you 20 pages of ideas on getting paid, which can be simplified into these four steps you can use for getting paid more this year:

1. Know what you are worth: Give up on the typical Wall Street BS of thinking you are worth more because you’ve occupied your seat for one more year. You aren’t like one of those fancy seat heaters you pay more for warming a seat, you get paid more for driving more value. So, ask yourself, what value have you driven this year?

2. Broadcast your value: Knowing your value is one thing, but to influence how you get paid, you must broadcast your value. You might broadcast your value directly or if that is too crass/blunt/inappropriate in your firm, you might broadcast your value more indirectly by talking in generalities about the type of year you have had. Successfully broadcasting your value is a function of knowing who to influence and how you do it.

3. Communications plan: You know my shtick by now: To get what you want, you want to develop a process designed to lead you to success. In Do What You Want on Wall Street I share with you a four-step, five page communication plan for getting paid. Thinking ahead by knowing your intent, framing your ask specifically for each person, and communicating with devastating impact is the secret to a good comp outcome.

4. Leverage: Like two pit-bulls facing off against each other, you are negotiating with people who negotiate for a living. And everyone who negotiates for a living is constantly asking one question: what happens if I don’t give you what you want?

Leverage is essential in comp discussions, yet the type of leverage you employ can make the difference between getting what you want and getting the boot. Just this year I know of a top-performing partner who walked into the division-head’s office to “demand” his “fair” share, and walked out without a job!

Getting leverage right is an art I share with you more in my book.

Fearful of getting it wrong, many people on Wall Street will end up settling for whatever their bosses choose to pay them, but those who get it right can easily add five to six figures to their bonus this yea

The Greatest Technology Investment

Recently on a trip to Silicon Valley I sat with a group of leading technologists and venture capitalists.

Casually I noted how ironic it is that here we sit at the center of technology innovation, yet right here in this room the most advanced technology on the planet is being used at a fraction of its capacity.

Like a honey badger had burrowed into the room, all attention turned to me, and the elder statesman asked me, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Imagine I told you that despite the trillions of dollars invested in technology the greatest technology known to man has been underinvested in for millennia.”

This technology is vastly superior to any machine we have ever invented and in fact it is so complex that today with our most advanced machines we have little idea of how it works.

I continued, “And despite the fact this technology exists right here in this room right beneath your noses, few of you have done anything to explore it.”

“What? What is it?” A young VC partner asked.

“Well in fact it is right above your noses, between your ears, that incredible machine known as your brain,” I responded.

It is by far the most advanced technology known to man yet few of you have invested even minutes exploring your own brain.

You of course use it. Like waking up in the morning, switching on the coffee machine, turning the handles that get the water dousing your body, and igniting the engine as you jump behind the wheel, you most certainly use this technology all day every day, but few of you have ever done anything to explore it.

Of course us humans have found many ways to develop this incredible learning machine, but like those waste of time apps and mind numbing games on the mini computer in your pocket it is built for much more.

Like the Internet and TV and radio airways us humans have found infinite ways to fill the capacity of this technology with absolute junk, but only a small number of the billions of humans who have ever walked the planet have ever truly explored this limitless machine.

Those few who have know that there is only one secret to exploring the brain, and today science is finally catching on to what the greatest thinkers in all of human history have known all along.

A great philosopher once observed, as above, so below. What he was describing was the greatest discovery of all existence. We live in infinite space and our greatest discoveries come not from only exploring the objects that consume space, but in exploring space itself.

Looking around the room and seeing their minds turning over, I paused. Coming back to this time they wondered, was I just thinking aloud or do I have a suggestion for how one might explore this space.

Those with ears of understanding will call me when they are ready.