How Much Did Your Dreams Cost?

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Tim Sackett

It’s the holidays, do yourself a favor and go out and download or Redbox the movie “Up In the Air“. It’s a great movie for HR pros. One of the best scenes is this one (below) between George Clooney and J.K. Simmons:

Enjoy your time off, if you have it. Either way, answer me this, how much did you get paid to give up your dreams?

I got paid $20,000. That’s how much I get paid, salary, for my first Recruiting job right out of college.

I wanted to be a college volleyball coach. I was good at it. I loved doing it. I found my wife because of it.

$20,000.

It seems silly, now, looking back on it. $20,000 is nothing. My life has worked out wonderfully, but it’s a lesson I’ll pass along to my kids. Dreams are wasted on the young. Don’t give up your chance when you are young. All too soon, you’ll reach a stage in life where your dreams won’t seem that important any longer.

We are told that the key to a happy work life is to find a job you love, and you’ll never ‘work’ another day as long as you live. About .01% of people actually find jobs they truly love. The rest of the 99.9% work jobs that are fine, but not love. You only fall in love with a job when you follow your dreams.

It’s not 100%. Sometimes your dreams end up sucking. Don’t get down about that. Many, many people suck at their dreams. That’s life. You’re allowed to change your dreams. Just don’t wait too long to do it!

The Next Generation Just Named Itself! #NicknamingYourselfIsStupid

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Tim Sackett

Have you ever had a nickname you didn’t want? You were in the third grade and crapped your pants and some dumb kid called you ‘Stinky’ and it stuck, for life! The rest of your life you got to go around being called ‘Stinky’ and having to explain this to people.

I think most people in those situations try to create a new nickname! “Hey, guys, just call me Dice! I was at summer camp and all the guys there called me “Dice”! We played this game with dice and I was really great at it, anyway, it stuck. So, you guys can call me Dice, I’m cool with it.” Okay, Stinky, we got you!

There’s only one rule in nicknames. That rule? You can’t make your own nickname!

To my surprise the great folks at MTV decided it would be a great idea for the kids over at GenZ, that generation under the Millennials, to just come up with their own generational nickname. The MTV crew actually surveyed thousands of high school kids from across the country to determine what they would prefer to have their ‘generation’ called.

Say hello to The Founders!

Why the founders? Well, apparently this next generation has attached itself the Silicon Valley culture of founding companies. Not they have really actually done this, but it’s what they identify with, so why not act like you started this whole dot com, startup thingy.

What do we really know about these Founders? A few things for sure, that I think will help organizations understand this next generation entering the workforce:

1. They were raised during the Great Recession. Not since the Great Depression, have so many kids witnessed parents and adults close to them lose so many jobs and struggle financially. This will impact their work ethic, the importance of keeping a job, etc. Think the opposite of how Millennials view work! The Founders probably have more in common with the Greatest Generation, than the Millennials.

2. They have never not had a Smartphone. This will impact how they do their work, how they socialize and how they communicate. The Millennials had flip phones to start!

3. The media has bombarded them with unrealistic views of what work looks like. Google is an outlier, not the norm. Yet, they tend to believe it’s the norm because the ‘Googlized’ work environment gets so much publicity. 99% of work environments do not look like Google. This will cause some ‘hey, I didn’t expect this’ moments for a ton of kids in their first jobs.

I hate naming generations. Millennials, Founders, Gen-X… They’re kids. They won’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, and you’ll have to teach them most everything they’ll need to know about your company and your jobs, because our educational system continues give them real-world skills to compete.

Call them whatever you want. Entry level always seems to fit best.

How To Fall In Love With Your Job. Just. Do. This.

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Tim Sackett

A psychologist, Arthur Aron, came up with a way to get to strangers to fall in love with each other. His research is fascinatingly simple! It basically comes down to having the two people sit down facing each other, then methodically going through and asking and answering a set of 36 increasingly more intense personal questions. This experience gets the individuals to understand each other a highly personal level.

Here are some of the questions:

They start somewhat easy:

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

begin to increase in intensity:

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

and continue down an emotional path:

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

The science behind this study, is if you can honestly answer all 36 questions with this other person, you will probably share more with this one person, and them with you, then you have ever shared with any one person in your life!

So, how do you get someone to fall in love with their job?

Modify the technique and questions between an employee and their direct supervisor. The questions don’t have to all be asked at one time. Strategically, using these questions to drive frank discussions between employee and supervisor over time will get both to truly value and understand each other.

You can imagine how some of these questions would look:

1. Tell me about the job you loved the most and why?

2. What part of this job do you love doing? Hate doing?

3. Who has had the most influence in your life, to this point, and what do they do for you on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

Here’s the deal, though. It takes two to fall in love! Your managers/leaders have to become as vulnerable as the employee. Turns out HR has very little to do with getting employees to fall in love with their job. Having strong, understanding relationships at work, have more impact than some silly HR program. But, HR could help develop this employee/leader process!

Crazy. Real conversations with employees. Truly getting to know them. Makes a difference. This isn’t your parents leadership model!

Check out all 36 questions. They could make for some really dynamic ‘date night’ conversations!

A Farewell Tour for an HR Pro

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Tim Sackett

If you didn’t see it, one of the all-time greats of the NBA, Kobe Bryant, recently announced he was going to retire. Kobe is a personal favorite of mine, because, besides Jordan, he might be the most competitive player I’ve ever seen play. If you played against Kobe, he hated you. If you played with Kobe, he put up with you! I love me some Black Mamba!

So, Kobe is now on his city by city farewell tour. This happens in sports all the time for the great ones. We got to see it last year with Yankee great Derek Jeter. It’s always the same thing. Each city/team tries to outdo each other with giving gifts and paying tribute to the all-time great player. Everyone plays nice. Hugs (I like that part). Gifts. Don’t guard me too close so I can make a few plays for the fans to remember me by! You know the drill!

When a HR Manager decides to retire, we never get a farewell tour. I think we should! Here’s what an average HR Manager Farewell Tour would look like:

Week #1 – Your benefits vendor invites you out to Applebee’s for a free lunch. Go ahead get the appetizer, the sirloin, and the strawberry lemonade! Heck, throw in a brownie bite. Yeah, in might go over your $25 limit, but this is your tour, no one is going to care you took $28, not $25!

Week #2 – Your HRMS vendor wants to drop off a little something to congratulate you. Looks like a bottle of wine! (Pro tip: I would ask if it’s alcohol on the front side, then meet them in the parking lot!)

Week #3 – Your EAP vendor dropped off bagels from Panera, with three kinds of cream cheese! Way over $25, but you’re really sharing with the group, so you can divide that out. Pretty safe! (Pro Tip: On your farewell tour, make sure to bring in a toaster into the office, if you don’t already have one – some will always drop off bagels!)

Week #4 – CareerBuilder just wants to send you a little something to say thanks! Also, who’s taking over for you? CB swag is always great. Pick through the box for the good stuff first, then throw the rest in the break room. It will be gone in no time! (Pro tip: if you spend a bunch with your job board vendor – like $25K+ – you can turn this into a lunch!)

Week #5 – Your ATS vendor called to wish you luck. You just happen to drop the ‘hint’ you can’t wait to go to more movies! It’s a passion of yours! You love going to the theater, but it’s so darn expensive! Theater gift card will be coming soon in the mail!

Week #6 – It’s the employee cake and ice cream social event. You have to throw this one in, even though, you’ll be the one ordering your own cake and ice cream! It’s your party, make sure you get the cake you want, and not that cheap crap you order for all the other employees who retire!

Week #7 – Save this one for last! It’s time to call on your staffing vendor! Staffing vendors are an easy steak dinner and drinks kind of night. You do this last because you don’t want to come back to the office and look anyone in the eye after this night. Staffing folks can party, and still believe that if they get you drunk you’ll tell them all your secrets. The secret is, we don’t have any!

The bigger the organization the longer you can stretch out this tour since you probably have more vendors. It’s your tour, do with it what you will. Just remember, you earned it!

HR Pros! You Should Be Going To Court More!

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Tim Sackett

There’s one thing we as HR pros are pretty consistent on. We never want to go to court! We do just about anything to mitigate risk for ourselves and our organizations. The first step of HR Club is don’t go to court!

Now, that’s how most HR pros feel. I don’t. I don’t believe it’s HR’s job to mitigate risk. I believe it’s HR’s job to advise our decision makers of risk. Of course, if you are a decision maker, in HR, then it’s your job to mitigate risk over what you’re responsible for. All that being said, I’m in the minority of that opinion.

So, why do I feel this way? It’s all numbers to me. Check this out from FloridaOvertimeLawyer.com:

-In 2014, there were 88,778 Employment Related Charges Filed in the U.S.

-In 2014, from those charges, a total of $372,100,000 dollars was awarded to the winners of those cases.

-That averages out to just: $4,191.35 per case.

Here’s the reality of employment related cases:

-Most cases are won by the employer.

-Employee and Past Employees believe their cases are worth millions.

-Most end up settling for a few thousand dollars.

First, I’m not advising you to not be safe and just go all willy-nilly and go to court! Don’t be stupid. Also, don’t allow yourself and your organization to be held hostage by an employee or past employee threatening a lawsuit. Most you can settle for way less than you can ever believe!

When I first started in HR I was always shocked by how small of amount of money it would take to make ‘problems’ go away, from a legal standpoint. The numbers above say the same thing. Sure, there is always a risk of a big score. Usually, the companies that get hit with those are truly doing something very bad. If you’re doing good work and trying to follow the letter of the law, rarely do those cases turn into major scores for employees.

Do you want to go to court? Of course not. You, also, don’t want to allow your organization to be bullied by an employee who is taking advantage of your fear of going to court. Judges are really smart people. They see through most con-artists pretty quickly. I’ve been to court on employment matters a number of times, and each time the judge was fair to my organization, and called out bullshit when they saw it.

Do good work. Do good by your employees. Don’t allow your organization to bad stuff. Trust our legal system will do what’s right. Don’t allow yourself to be held hostage!

Sackett’s Guide to Visiting Sydney – Part 2

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Tim Sackett

Continued from yesterday’s Part 1 post. From my recent travels to Sydney, Australia, here are my ‘take aways’ from my trip. Sydney is great! Make sure to check out my first post as well, otherwise you’ll lose the context of this one! Enjoy.

–Sydney is a walking city. It’s like a mini-New York City, but it’s clean and doesn’t smell like a toilet! Everything seems like it’s a half to a mile away. Not quite far enough to get a cab or Uber, but far enough you’re lazy American ass will get tired. You don’t see many fat people in Sydney! They are in shape and good looking.

–If and when I return to Sydney, I’ll find out how to spend more time at Manly Beach! It was $7.50, thirty minute ferry ride to the most beautiful little beach town. Plus, the fairy ride gives you million dollar views of the Opera house and the Harbor Bridge. Great surfing at Manly Beach! It’s such a easy trip over, it’s hard to believe it’s that close to downtown Sydney.

–The Harbor Bridge climb. You can climb to the top of the Harbor Bridge. It will cost you about $250 per person. If you’re afraid of heights this isn’t from you. You get amazing views! I was glad I did it. I wouldn’t pay to do it again. Once you do it, you probably never have to do it again. In hindsight, I would probably spend that $250 on more surf lessons at Manly Beach, or a helicopter ride to see the city and great views of the cliffs along the ocean.

–Shopping. If you like shopping, you will like Sydney. You could spend a month in Sydney and never get to all the shops. Yes, many are tourist traps. Uggs are everywhere. Most are knockoffs of what you get in the states and not as good quality. The good quality ones cost about the same of what you’ll pay in the states. “Uggs” is a generic term in Australia, not a brand name. Uggs in Australia refers to sheep skin shoes and boots. Most American brands being sold in Sydney are 40-50% more than you can buy in the states. Don’t come to Sydney looking for deals. Sydney is an expensive city for shopping, food, drinking, living, etc.

–It’s awesome to have such a big city like Sydney, with a great costal ocean views so close! We did the Bondi to Coogee costal walk and it was great. About 3 mile walk with amazing views and places to stop along the way. It’s up and down, so be prepared. The 3 miles will feel like 5 miles! Well worth it, about a $20 Uber ride from the city. Both Bondi and Coogee have good places to eat and drink, so you can start the walk from either end. The best pictures happen closer to Bondi.

–Darling Harbor is a cool up and coming entertainment district. Ton of shops and restaurants. Plus, there is also the Sydney aquarium and indoor Zoo. So, you can see all the major Australian wild and sea life without leaving the city. $60 bucks to see both. For another $20 you can get your picture with a Kola Bear. You don’t get to hold it, but you’ll be inches from it. Plus, the zoo keeper let us stay in the area and gave us some awesome insight and let us take more pics with our phones. It was well worth the $20! You can run through both of these in like three hours.

–The Rocks is another great area down by the Opera House. It’s the original landing spot for the Europeans that came to Australia. Cruise ships come here as well. So, a ton of little unique shops and restaurants. It’s all an easy walk from downtown Sydney, and you can easily waste a half day or more here.

–The Hay Market/Paddy Market is a complete waste of time. It’s basically a giant Chinese knockoff market in what is considered China Town in Sydney. If you’re looking for loads of poorly made, cheap crap, this is your place. If you love Asian food, this is also a place you might want to visit. Although, you will see great Asian restaurants all over Sydney.

–Toast! First, Australians know how to do bread! We had the best bread everywhere in Sydney. One funny thing, though, were the number of places that sold “toast”. Yes, it’s what you think. Just a piece of toasted bread. But, unlike in America, it’s not some piece of crappy Wonder bread, it’s a big Texas slice of home-made bread, grilled on a flat top. Usually running about $3.50-5 per slice (I told you this place is expensive!), it was well worth it! I had the Banana Bread at least four times at different places and it was always amazing! I never did, though, get over seeing ‘toast’ on the menu as a main item in so many places.

Did I mention the 14-hour flight from the states is a bitch! Hit me in the comments with what I missed about Sydney!

Sackett’s Guide to Visiting Sydney – Part 1

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Tim Sackett

First, let me say, I’m VERY American. This means I like all my American comforts and stuff. This will help put this post into perspective when you read it. I recently got a chance to visit Sydney, AUS to speak at HR Tech Fest 2015. It’s a great HR Tech conference based in Sydney, with great HR and Talent Pros from Australia and New Zealand.

My wife and I stayed for a week after the conference, because if you’re going to make that 14-hour flight from the states, you really need to stay a while. A week wasn’t long enough, but The Sackett’s kill vacations, so we get a lot done in a week.

I read a bunch about visiting Sydney before we went, but it never seems to tell you the really important stuff. Stuff that will cause an American to be uncomfortable, or slightly put off our normal routine while leaving our great country! So, I wanted to share some real tips for anyone traveling to Sydney from America.

Tim’s Tips to visiting Sydney:

–Soda or Pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.) seems to be hated by Australians. Soda is super expensive in Sydney. Like $3-5 for a 12 oz can. Plus, you get very limited options. Most places only had Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero or Pepsi Max. That’s it! If you searched you could find Diet Dr. Pepper and Mt. Dew, and a few local sodas, but it’s clear that soda drinking is not something Australians are really into. Also, no free refills at restaurants! So, you pay $4 for a small glass of Coke, which won’t come close to quenching your thirst or getting you to the finish of your meal! As you can imagine this was a major problem for me! In some bars we went to (during happy hour) the beer was the same price as pop!

–Bar and grill type restaurants are everywhere in Sydney, and most have the same exact type of menu: Burgers, which they use as a ‘title’, chicken sandwiches are also called ‘burgers’. Pizza, thin crust, fresh mozzarella, almost no place had pepperoni. Steaks, which were wonderful everywhere we went (great beef in Australia). Some kind of seafood, also very good and fresh in Sydney! Almost no Mexican food is available, it’s rare. Asian restaurants are everywhere and in all kinds (Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Korean, etc.).

–Food is extremely expensive in Sydney. Restaurants, stores, etc. doesn’t matter. Plan on spending a ton to feed yourself. Also, portions are much smaller in Australia then in America. The one thing that was similar in portion size and value was the Fish and Chips, which you can get everywhere, and always good!

–Customer service. People in Australia are extremely friendly, but they have a different attitude towards customer service. Which is basically, help yourself! There is very little tipping in Australia, and wait staff gets paid like $18-20/hr. Not having to rely on tips to get paid makes them indifferent to really waiting on you! Most bar and grill restaurants you have to go up to the bar and order your own food. If you come in and sit at a table, you will sit there forever and no one will come ask if you want something!

–Take Away (takeout) – you will get asked at every eating place if you want to ‘take away’, which means you just want to take your food and leave, not eat at the restaurant. I think this is done because they don’t really want to wait on you! Most locals seemed to take away. The foreigners were the only ones you really wanted full service!

–Television is Australia is weird. First, there news broadcasts are very global. Also, there news hosts actually give their opinion! Sometimes very strong opinion. In the states we just hire models with no opinion to give us our news. Australians love American TV, but it’s not on the networks you think it should be. An NBC show in the states might be shown on ABC or Fox in Sydney, but still have the NBC logo! Also, they will bundle a bunch of reality shows on different networks in the states on one network in Sydney. Plus, they’ll show ‘new’ shows that probably played a few years ago in the states, but also mix in new shows as well.

–There are almost no African or African-American people in Sydney! Like strangely absent! In a week I literally saw 4 ‘black’ people in a city of millions! It was a bit unsettling. This is also weird since it seemed like Australians were really into HipHop culture. You heard the music and fashion everywhere, just no black faces. I never did figure this out. But plan on not seeing black people, but seeing Asians and Indians who have Australian accents, not their own countries. This will throw you as well.

Part 2 tomorrow…

2015 Top Post: Resumes Objectives Sent From G*D

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy!

This is an actual resume objective from an actual candidate’s resume that was submitted for a position at my company (HRU Technical Resources) this past week:

Objective: (As written, no corrections)
1. Move out of my apartment after 4 years of living there.
2. Buy house
3. Buy ring, find girlfriend, marry her.
4. Continue investing for retirement
5. Go to florida on vacation
6. Make documentaries
7. Do what I do best. Intovate.

Because this might possibly the best resume objective ever written, I wanted to break all seven of the objectives down:

1. Shows great forward thinking and longevity all in one simple sentence. I want more, but I’m willing to work to get there.

2. Big goal #1 – set the foundation. Smart!

3. I’m heterosexual, just in case you were wondering. Plus, I do things a little different. I want to get the ring before the girl. That way I’ll know for sure the girl will like the ring that I can afford, since it will already be bought. I might even show it to her on the first date, just so we don’t run into problems later down the road.

4. Long term planning. Conservative. Can’t rely on Obama to plan for my retirement.

5. But, I like to party and have fun in the short term.

6. I also have a serious side and a creative side. I’m the full package.

7. Do what I do best! Intovate! Not spelling. He was so proud of it, I had to look it up and make sure I wasn’t missing something! You know I’m grammatically challenged! Nope Intovate is not a word, but it sure sounds like it should be!

There is a reason that resumes are dying, and this might it. For certain positions you need a resume, but for most you just need to fill out the application, no resume needed. Some how, at some point in our history, everyone began to feel like they need a resume. That’s when this happens.

Happy Searching my recruiting friends! Go forth today and Intovate!

2015 Top Post: Sometimes A Job Isn’t Worth It

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy!

Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died last month at 52 from an inoperable esophageal cancer. Turns out Linds didn’t really like his old job and mad hours he spent creating a successful career. Here is what Linds wrote before he died:

“I think you’re all f—— mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f—— TV commercial. Nobody gives a s—.

This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.

Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. It would all be worth it in the long run…

This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be. We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast as I called it on my more cynical days.

So was it worth it?

Well of course not. It turns out it was just advertising. There was no higher calling.”

When faced with death, I wonder how many of us will look back on all the time and effort we put into our career and will feel the same?

That all being said, sometimes I think a job might be worth it as well. Here’s the other side of the coin. I frequently see articles and blog posts, recently, written by people who have given up their careers to travel the world. It all seems so glamorous and adventurous. Until you realize you had a career and job to pay for all those glamorous adventures! From Adweek, “The Couple Who Quit Their Ad Jobs to Travel the World Ended Up Poor and Scrubbing ToiletsThe uglier side of a year-long creative journey”:

“You remember Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger, the South African couple who quit their agency jobs this year to travel the world anddocument the experience. It sounded like a dream, and the lovely Instagram photos have made it look like one.

But halfway through their year-long odyssey (they’re currently in Athens, having traveled 25,000 kilometers so far), they’ve posted a reality check on their blog—a post titled “Why We Quit Our Jobs In Advertising To Scrub Toilets”—in which they share “the uglier side of our trip.” It turns out that following one’s dream—while working odd jobs in exchange for room and board—involves a lot of dirty work, and more than a few tears.

“The budget is really tight, and we are definitely forced to use creativity (and small pep talks) to solve most of our problems (and the mild crying fits),” Cartell writes. “Don’t let the bank of gorgeous photography fool you. Nuh uh. So far, I think we’ve tallied 135 toilets scrubbed, 250 kilos of cow dung spread, 2 tons of rocks shoveled, 60 meters of pathway laid, 57 beds made, and I cannot even remember how many wine glasses we’ve polished.

“You see, to come from the luxuries we left behind in Johannesburg … we are now on the opposite end of the scale. We’re toilet cleaners, dog poop scoopers, grocery store merchandisers and rock shovelers.”

We work for a reason. Your reasons might be vastly different than my reasons, but we all have reasons. I hope if I look death in the face I won’t regret my choices to work and create a successful career. I’ve missed my fair share of school events and sporting events that my kids have participated in. I’ve missed many of their most joyful and sad moments. Those I already regret. What I won’t regret is that I work to allow my family to have so many of these moments.

I lived poor. I lived with a single mother who wasn’t quite sure how she was going to pay for dinner that night. I work because I never wanted my family to feel this anxiety. Sometimes a job is worth it, sometimes it isn’t. It’s all up to you to decide, though.

2015 Top Post: Top 25 Rap Lyrics That Shaped My Leadership Style

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy!

Last year I did blog series on The Top 25 Rap Lyrics that shaped my leadership style. The posts, individually, still get clicked a ton, so I decided to do a compilation of the 25 posts to make it easier for new readers to find all 25 (I know my family is really proud of me right now!). Taken out of context of the original post, you might be asking yourself “How the hell did this shape his leadership style?” If you find yourself asking that, click through the link to read the explanation!

Here you go – The Top 25 Rap Lyrics That Shaped My Leadership Style with links to the original posts:

1. “It’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see” -Notorious B.I.G.

2. “Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K., I got to say it was a good day” -Ice Cube

3. “What does it take to be number 1? Two is not a winner and three nobody remembers.” -Nelly

4. “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.” -Jay-Z

5. “When I wake up, people take up, mostly all of my time. I’m not singin’, phone keep ringin’, so I make up a rhyme.” -RUN DMC

6. “It’s funny how someone else’s success brings pain.” -Drake

7. “Success is my drug of choice…” – 50 Cent

8. “Forgive, but don’t forget.” -2Pac

9. “True happiness is not acquired, and you won’t find it on sale.” -Outkast

10. “At exactly which point do you realize, that life without knowledge is death in disguise.” -Talib Kweli

11. “You’re young and dumb and quick with the tongue.” -Kool Mo Dee