Category Archives: Trench HR

4 Ways To Find Great Talent on Glassdoor

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The next biggest recruiting play is not LinkedIn, or CareerBuilder, or Monster.  It’s Glassdoor!  But you wouldn’t know that, because you still see them as a place where former employees and zombies go to bitch about your company and bad managers.  It’s not!

Kris Dunn and I are going to show you, in this month’s FOT webinar, how smart companies are leveraging Glassdoor in their recruiting practices to steal your talent, and it’s not the crappy talent you wish would leave!

Yep, Glassdoor is sponsoring this webinar.  Yep, Kris and I made sure they knew we don’t hold back punches!  That, in and of itself, is cool, because they know we speak the truth, and they aren’t afraid of the truth getting out (BTW – we have a lot of companies not willing to do FOT webinars because of this!).

Let’s face it. HR pros have a long history of being uncomfortable with sites like Glassdoor.com. After all, the only people that use Glassdoor.com and sites like it are disgruntled ex-employees that you fired, right?

Wrong. It was wrong 5 years ago, and it’s horribly wrong today. Rather than view these types of sites as a threat, smart HR and Recruiting pros are learning how to use the reputation/rating sites to manage their employment brand, connect with candidates and make better hires.

The days of the employment brand strategy with scripted photos, smiling faces (just the right amount of diversity!) and PDFs are over.

That’s why we’re going deep on reputation sites like Glassdoor in the July version of the FOT Webinar entitled,“How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor.”  Join Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett from Fistful of Talent at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th, and we’ll hit you with the following:

– How the the yelp-ification of America—the trend towards consumer-based reviews in almost every area of our economy—is changing the way employees and candidates think about job search and employer brands. It’s second nature for your employees to rate a restaurant, a book or a movie online. That means that employees of all types (not just the ones who want to complain) are more willing than ever to participate in your brand through user review.

– Why the explosion of social media and deep coverage of every aspect of our lives through video and photos is changing the willingness of smart companies to increase their transparency.  Every employee and candidate who interacts with your company is a potential reporter, and they expect you to share the good, bad and ugly about working with your firm openly and honestly. Old versions of employment brands won’t cut it—you”re going to have to give up some control to maximize your brand.

– We’ll cover the 5 Biggest Myths about company reputation sites like Glassdoor and tell you which ones are completely BS and which ones you actually perpetrate by not fully engaging on sites like Glassdoor. We’ll hit the usual suspects here: “The only comments are from the bad employees”  and “The salary data out there isn’t factual,” and tell you why things have changed. More importantly, we’ll cover how you actually may make the myths a reality by not fully engaging on reputation sites.  Think about that last sentence: You’ve got to be in the game to influence the game.

– Last but not least, we’ll give you a 4-step playbook on how to engage on reputation sites and become more of a Marketer as an HR/Recruiting Pro.  It’s true—you wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t want to learn more about how to use reputation sites like Glassdoor to maximize your company and your career. We’ll help you get started.

The outside world now has a huge say in how your company/employment brand is perceived, whether you engage or not. FOT thinks you should engage.  Join us for “How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor” at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th and we’ll show you how.

(FOT Note: Glassdoor is sponsoring this FOT webinar. We’re happy to have them as a sponsor and, true to their commitment to transparency, they’re letting us talk about the myths and a lot of other realities HR and Recruiting pros have experienced related to Glassdoor—without restriction. That type of balance makes them a great partner.  Join us and we promise you’ll get a balanced view—no sales pitch—as well as an insider’s guide to how to use sites like Glassdoor to become a better marketer as an HR/Recruiting pro.)

I was fired for taking a 15 Minute dump

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I believe in natural selection.  When the internet when crazy last week because some little known company was only allowing their employees 6 minutes to use the bathroom each day, I didn’t have a strong reaction.  I didn’t care because I know, from experience, companies only do this because they are forced into the position, for some reason or another, or they have horrible leadership. Or, sometimes, both.

This might be the case for Water Saver Faucet Company out of Chicago, but quite honestly, I don’t know. Here’s what we know.  The owner of the company makes his employees swipe in and out of the bathrooms to monitor usage.  Sounds horrific, the internet screamed!  How could anyone do this?! Well, he’s doing it, and in a Teamsters union shop (this could be a post on how far the union has fallen!).

We could argue for days about why this is wrong, but no one wants to argue about why this might be right!

Here’s what we don’t know, but a savvy HR Pro would question before coming to conclusions:

1. Why did he feel the need to install such a system to begin with?

2. How much money is the company losing for excessive bathroom use?

3. Did we try other measures, first, before deciding on this measure?

4. Were employees consulted about this change, before making it?

5. Are we actually breaking any laws by doing this?

6. Are we putting ourselves in a unfavorable recruiting stance, by making this change?

We could go on, and on, but our reality is, there might very well be great reasons to monitor the use of your bathroom facilities at your office.

The company claims they lost 120 hours of productivity in May alone to unscheduled bathroom breaks. In a shop where they already get one 10 minute mid-morning break, a lunch break and a 15 minute afternoon break.  At which time they can use the restrooms as freely as they would like.  The six minutes of bathroom break monitoring is for unscheduled breaks.

This still sounds barbaric for so many of my HR friends.  Many of which have never worked in a union shop.  I have.  I played the union game.  I’ve spent time in the bathroom for long periods with nothing to do, but not wanting to build another pallet or haul more material. So I hid out.  By the way, I was showed how to do this during my union mandated 3 weeks of supervised training, for a job that took me about 30 minutes to learn.  I was showed when to go, where to go, and how much time I could stay without repercussions.  I was also showed where I could go to play cards, smoke, sneak outside to my car, etc.  It was a ‘great’ training program!

Should someone who physically has to use the restroom ever feel like they can’t or they’ll use their job?  Absolutely, not.  Should employees who take advantage of ‘using’ the bathroom to get out of work? Yes.  But that is so hard to prove! So, what do you do?  In this case, leadership decided to limit access.  Will it work? Who knows, but it got the point across to the workforce that someone is watching.

 

 

Resume Objectives Sent from G*d

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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:
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!

 

HR Strategy For Dummies

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If there is one thing I hate in HR, it’s when I hear other HR Pros try and make HR seemingly overly complicated.  Look, we aren’t launching the Space Shuttle, we are only trying to get good people to come and stay at our organizations.  It’s not rocket science, it’s people science, and it’s probably less science and more common sense.  We could call your HR strategy, People Sense! That’s sounds like a bad HR tech company name.

The reality is our organizations actually have fairly low expectations when it comes to HR strategy.  It doesn’t seem that way because we tend to get stuck in doing so much busy work, that anything strategic throws us off our tactical game.  In truth our organizations really just want HR to deliver some very simple things, consistently, without fail.  Here they are:

1. Make sure everyone gets paid on time and correctly. This should be done 99.99% of the time with out fail.

2. Make it easy for us to get answers to simple questions.  I need to see a doctor about a bump. This should be one call, one click. Not a process.

3. Hiring manager needs a new person, a back-fill or an upgrade.  Give me a realistic timeline on how long this will take and what my role in the this process will be.  Don’t think you have to do it all, let’s just be clear what each of us is going to do, and deliver those items.

4. I have no idea how to lead my team, please help me be better now, and get better for the future.

5. We don’t care you don’t have a ‘system’ that can do this, or not do this.  That’s a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem.  Figure it out, that’s your department.  I don’t tell you we don’t have the proper system to design parts, that’s not your problem.  It’s my job to make sure we get parts designed.  It’s your job to make sure of the all the people stuff.

6. I’m concerned about how to get work done right now, deadlines.  I need you to be concerned about how we’ll get work done in the future, and keep me in the loop on these issues.

7. Help me get my team better.

We tend to believe that our processes and systems will drive our strategy.  They won’t, there just processes and systems.  Side note: stop asking Enterprise Systems to change to your way of thinking.  You paid a lot of money for a great tool, which was designed under specific methodology and processes, that are way more scientific than you. Follow their work flows, you’ll be so much better off in the long run.  Your processes and systems aren’t that special.

HR strategy for small businesses to the largest corporations and organizations in the world aren’t really all that different.  There are a few things we need to deliver almost perfectly, then we need to help our organizations get better.  We add in so much complexity, that these simple truths get lost by so many HR Pros. It’s about delivering pay and benefits flawlessly, finding and retaining talent that works for us, developing and guiding leaders to run effective teams, helping our employees better versions of themselves, and ensuring we are prepared for what comes next.

Sounds simple, right!?

5 Ways HR Pros Can Get Back Up After Being Knocked Down

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Almost weekly I get a message from a HR or Talent Pro from around the world who has gotten their ass handed to them in some way or another.  Maybe they tried making a necessary change in their organization and got shot down by an executive.  They gave some wrong advice to an employee, and now legal is beating them up.  They didn’t move fast enough in making a decision, so the decision was made for them. They did everything they could do to get an candidate to accept and offer, just to have the candidate turn it down, then the hiring manager makes one call and they accept.

The stories are always different, yet, always the same.  They are feeling beaten up, broken down and just flat feeling like they’ve chosen the wrong profession.

I can always relate with their stories.  Every HR Pro has been through these types of issues.  Sometimes in HR it feels like these are ‘always’ the issues and the job will never get better.

I believe there are 5 things HR Pros can do to pull themselves back up and prepare for another day.

1. Shed The Shame: “shame is a toxic form of fear,” says Scott C. Hammond, a clinical professor of management at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. So, often in business we make a bad decision or something we are responsible for fails, and we feel shame and embarrassment.  For some reason HR Pros feel we need to be perfect.  We don’t.  We have to be good, good is not perfect.  We don’t expect any other employee to be perfect.  You shouldn’t expect that from yourself.

2. Don’t Lose Hope: Hope gives us this promise that there is something better ahead.  A better day, a better project, maybe just a better cup of coffee.  Whatever it is, you can’t lose hope that better is always a possibility.  I always look at business as one large experiment. A test.  I hope it will be successful, but like any test, it might fail.  The cool thing about running experiments and tests in HR is you give yourself this hope that the next one will be better, because you now know at least one way not to do it!

3. You Have So Many Choices: In HR there are so few things we actually control.  That is why it’s so important not to forget and understand the choices you actually have.  I spoke to a person just yesterday who felt like they had ‘no choices’. After about 15 minutes of conversation he had completely changed his perception because we came up with at least 10 choices! Choice #1, you can always go and work somewhere else. Always. Might be different position, different money, different location, but you can.  In my career I made the choice once to take a position making half of what I was making. HALF!  It worked out just fine. I found out I could live with less house, less car, and still be happy – much more happy. You have choices.

4. Ask For Help: Most proud HR Pros don’t want to ask for help because they don’t want to appear weak or incapable.  The fact is, most people actually like to help and it makes them feel valuable.  Leaders like to be asked for help. They don’t see it as weakness, they see it as their time to earn their money. Yes! Someone finally needs someone my expertise! We try and tell ourselves this isn’t the case, but it’s not.  I’m always amazed at the positive response I get from people when I ask for help.  It might be hard for you to believe in our cynical world, but most people actually like helping others!

5. Be Willing To Reset:  If you get knocked down, having the ability to ‘reset’ and start again is huge.  Many times we feel like all is lost, when it’s really just knocked off the tracks for a moment.  Take a breath.  Put what happened into proper perspective and get back on track.  Resetting is a powerful way to get yourself back to work and back to your positive self.  Alright, that didn’t go well.  Let’s see where we are, what we still have that is usable, and how we can make this thing fly moving forward.

adapted from Fast Companies “How Resilient People Stand Back Up When Life Knocks Them Down”

Naked and Afraid HR

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Have you guys seen the TV show Naked and Afraid?  It’s brilliant!  It’s basically a survivalist show where they take a man and woman and put them in some godforsaken place, with one tool each (knife, fire starter, etc.) and no clothes. That’s right, just like the day they were born, they only get to wear their birthday suit!  21 straight days naked with a person you have just met the first time, in horrible conditions you wouldn’t want to be in clothed, let alone naked.

Initially, you go, there is no way I’m sitting down in the mud and sticks and bugs and letting them crawl up my…well, you get the picture. You actually don’t get the picture, because they blur out the actual naked parts, accept butts, you see a lot of butts in Naked and Afraid.  I’m not completely sure why or who decided butts were fine to look at on normal cable TV but no pencils or vajayjays, but I guess we have to have limits.

Naked and Afraid is a HR dream TV show!

HR and organizations constantly put people together and force them to interact.  Naked and Afraid is almost the same thing, accept we make our people wear clothes per your dress code policy.  What you find in Naked and Afraid is usually very sexiest to begin with.  The guys want to take on this role of protecting the female (and they over act like seeing this woman naked is having no impact on them, I’m sure their blooper real is awesome!).  The females they get are usually bad-ass outdoorsy types, so they can usually take care of themselves.  After about ten days of hardly any food and water, usually one of the parties breaks down mentally.

This is the point my wife likes to point out, that it’s usually the man who loses it mentally.  For what ever reason, under nourished the men tend to break down faster than the females. While the guys do a lot of the heavy lifting of building shelters, rafts, etc.  It’s usually the women who can get them right in the head, and get them to finish line before tapping out and giving up.  Like I said, HR folks will love this show!

What this shows does is strip away everything between male and female and put them a completely level playing field.  They aren’t in competition, in fact, those that do best usually show the best team work, and really dig into each strengths to make it through the 21 days.  Just one man and one woman with only their skills to get them to survive.  I wonder how much better our own organizations would be if we could strip away all the B.S. we deal with and let people stand on their own merits!?

Naked and afraid shows you that each person, male and female, has their own strengths needed to survive. While one might possess enough of all these strengths to do it on their own, usually they don’t.  Our organizations have gender issues.  These issues are rooted in hundred’s of years of male domination, and the ingrained belief strong leaders are primarily male. This show demonstrates this is truly false when all things are equal.

Having a bias is the new black.  Like saying you know you have biases somehow exalts you of this weakness.  It doesn’t. In HR we allow our leadership to have a gender bias, and we help perpetuate it by not forcing change.  Naked and Afraid points this bias out in a not so subtle way and you get to see butts!

The Worst HR Advice I’ve Ever Given

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A few days ago this thought came to me: “What is the worst advice I’ve ever given anyone?’  Usually in a case like this the first thing you think of, is usually correct!  In my case, I came up with a number of things right away, none of which really seemed like the worst advice, and more of me making fun of what other people think is ‘good’ advice. Here’s a sample:

1. Don’t be afraid to fail.

2. Follow your passion!

3. Don’t play office politics.

4. Yeah, go get that Master’s in HR!

5. Just keep it to yourself, I’m sure no one will find out.

See what I’m talking about?!  All of the above statements have been shared as good advice, but I tend to think of them as terrible advice.

Then it came to me. The worst advice I have ever given to an employee in my HR career.  Here it is:

“Just wait and see what happens…”

This advice was given to an employee who really wanted a different position in the company, outside of their department.  It was going to come open because we all knew the person in the position was going to get promoted. I was early in my career, and believing our ‘process’ would help this person out.  Just wait, I thought, and once this person takes their new position, you can post for the their old position.  How naive I was.

The person who got promoted had a ‘plan’.  That plan had nothing to do with my process, or the employee who was wanting that position.  The plan did have the old employee putting one of his buddies into his old position, and seemingly everyone knew of this plan but me.  This was the day I learned that everyone has a plan, and in HR it’s really my job to know what those plans are, and manage expectations early.

The person I told to wait, now didn’t trust me, and truly believed I knew what was going to happen.  The reality was, I should have known, so I really couldn’t blame the person for being upset with me.  My own bad advice probably taught me more about HR than almost anything else I have ever learned in the profession.  As soon as you hear of possible moves, you better get involved.  Waiting to see what happens usually ends up with stuff happening, without you knowing!

The 6 Best Holidays According to Sackett

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

We’re right in the midst of this big holiday season and everyone seems to have a favorite.  I think most kids love Christmas and Halloween.  I mean my kids are Jewish and they still love Christmas – well, let’s face it, they love getting gifts and like any good Jewish Mom and Dad we make sure they get more gifts then their Christian friends!  Many adults love Thanksgiving – all the food, football, black Friday shopping, etc. But everyone has a favorite!

I’m going to give you my list of favorite holidays:

1. Tim Sackett Day – Yeah, how soon we all forget! January 23, 2013 will be the 2nd Annual Tim Sackett Day, and it is the one day of the year we can all come together as one, and just think about me for a while.  In lieu of gifts this year, I’ll be asking people to just make cash donations directly to my bank account, that way when I think about all the poor and needy children in the world and it makes me depressed, I can afford good mental healthcare for myself.

2. The 4th of July – Yep, I like blowing crap up, drinking and the sun – it’s like the triple threat of holidays!  I won’t give $50 bucks for your lame charity walk, but I’ll drop $500 on fireworks and think I underspent.  I mean it’s America!  Red, white and blue. Hotdogs with mustard. 2nd degree burns on your feet from stepping on those metal sparkler wires (pro tip – put a pale of water out when the kids are running around with their sparklers then as they run at you with that red hot wire, they can just throw it in the pale and hear the cool hissing sound it makes!).

3. Labor Day – It’s the official end summer blowout.  The weather is great, you have your grilling skills at peak seasonal shape and you’re only a few days away from your kids returning to school! Let’s be honest, we love our kids, but we love our kids a little more when they are in school all day and we just have to deal with them for about 6 hours between end of school and bedtime.

4. Halloween – There is nothing better than watching your kids sprint for 2 hours straight lugging around 15-20 pounds of candy, and I don’t have to do any of the work!  It can be 13 degrees below zero out and my kids will be sweating on Halloween night.  I love the candy trading negotiations that go on later that night – it’s when you get to see which one of your kids will actually make it in the real world!

5. Hanukkah – 8 crazy nights and none of your Christian friends get it! “Isn’t that your ‘Jewish’ Christmas?” – no, idiot, not even close! “I wish we had Christmas for 8 days!” and I wish you’d burn down your house again deep frying a turkey! Hanukkah is cool for the simple fact its the one time a year, as a kid, your mom let’s you play with fire! Plus the gelt! Yep, it’s not a Jewish holiday until you involve some money!

6. New Years Day – No work, football games all day and starting anew!  For me New Years takes on a special time as well because my first son was born on New Years Day – so we throw a birthday party into the mix, just to ensure we have enough food and cake to make it through all those football games!

Receiving votes, but didn’t make the list: Cinco De Mayo – Tacos and Margaritas – you have to  love Mexican holidays!; St. Patrick’s Day – Green Beer and pinching butts – a HR nightmare!; Father’s Day – I get to do what I want, or what my wife tells me I want to do that day!; Black Friday – I mean who doesn’t want to see idiots get trampled to death at Walmart!

So, friends, what is your favorite holiday?

The Search For The Smartest Employee

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I couldn’t sleep the other night, probably because of the 14 Diet Dews I had throughout the day, but I had an Epiphany while staring at the ceiling in the dark.   I figured out a way for HR Pros to find the Smartest Employee in their Company!  It isn’t a complex algorithm or a set of cognitive assessment tests – it’s a simple matrix – but it’s very effective.  Now, you might be asking yourself:

 “Why do I need to find the smartest employee in our company?”

Which would be legitimate – unfortunately at 2 a.m. I didn’t ask myself that same question – I just thought I came up with some crazy Einstein type shit!  But, like most things I deal with, I can come up with a plausible argument to why it’s important to find the smartest people in your company.  My reasons:

1. Smart people have the potential to do smart things.  In an organization you want to make the right decisions – usually dumb people don’t.

2. Smart people usually know other smart people. In an organization you want to get rid of your dumb people, and hire more smart people.

3. Smart people know the fakers.  Organizations make people selection mistakes, it happens all the time, don’t be embarrassed, just don’t let one decision turn into another by keeping a mistake.  Smart people know your bad hiring mistakes, because they can read through the B.S.

Now for the Matrix!  Like I said it’s simple – which is also why it’s genious, because anyone can do it.  It goes a little something like this (hit it!) –

First Step: down one side of your matrix list your employees by level of responsibility. Most responsible at the top, down to the least responsible at the bottom.  Some of these you’ll just have to do the eyeball test on, and slot people as you see fit – don’t get to worked up over this – just get the most responsible up top, the least down low – the ones in the middle don’t matter anyway.

Second Step: Across the top of the matrix list total compensation of each person to the corresponding column.  For the most part you should end up with a sheet that shows the most responsible person in your organization, making the most money, and slowing but surely working your way down to the least responsible, least amount of money.

Third Step: The Smart Employee Search.  Here’s where the rubber hits the road!  Now, look at your matrix and find the highest paid employee, with the corresponding least amount of experience.  Boom! You just found your smartest employee.

I told you it was easy!  This person has figured out how to, relatively, make the most money by having virtually no responsibility.  Say what you want – but that is one smart person!  You need to pull that person in and find out how to get them more engaged into your daily operations.  Don’t take this as a joke – dumb people don’t figure this out – you just don’t fall into a highly paid, low or no responsibility job – you have to work to get there.  Don’t underestimate this person’s capabilities – because guess what – everyone else has!  That’s why your working your butt off until 6pm, and they’re out the door at 3pm going to their golf league – for about $4000 less than you make. They’re going home with no stress, while you’re on your 4th therapist – this year.   They love coming to work – you have a hard time pulling yourself out of bed.

I love these employees – I try to hang with them, learn from them – I feel like I’m an anthropologist learning about a forgotten species – they intrigue me so.  A word of caution though – don’t try and capture and change these employees – don’t try and be “smarter” than they are – and change their job or their scope or their pay.  Remember, they’re smarter than you – you’ll just frustrate yourself as they find another position – doing even less for more!

5 Steps To HR Success

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I was reminded last night that success doesn’t just come to you, and it might not necessarily be about hard work and attitude – like your Dad would always say.  To often we (the collective lot of us!) want to believe success is like the lotto – at least to often we hope to get success that way – one day you don’t have success, then the next day success somehow miraculously finds you!

Sorry. Doesn’t usually work that way.

But one thing we over look is how important success is to finding success.  Here’s what I mean:

Directions for Being Successful –

Step 1: Find a little success

Step 2: Find another little success

Step 3: Find another little success

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 each day

Step 5: You are successful

I know, directions are hard to follow for some people, so let me give you an example.  You feel like a failure at everything – job is going well (or you don’t have one), relationships suck, you’re a little soft around the middle (i.e., fat) – basically you feel like a failure, nothing is going in the right direction.  Guess what? When you wake up tomorrow you won’t magically be successful – no matter how hard you wish it, pray it, want it.  You have to find some sort of success, no matter how small.  Maybe that success is eating one less Twinkie than you did the day before – yesterday I ate 8 Twinkies – today I only ate 7!  Don’t let someone tell you that’s not a success, because tomorrow I’m only going to eat 6 and before you know it I’m going to kick this Twinkie habit!

I works with everything.  Not recruiting enough candidates for your organization, can’t get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to you – today make one more call than you did yesterday – only 1 – that is a success, because tomorrow you’re going to do that again, 1 more than the day before – small success steps until you’re just one big giant bag full of success!

People who are successful and throw it in your face suck!  They suck because they act like they’ve always been successful, but they haven’t.  It came to them a little at a time, until they could no longer feel what failure felt like.  You see success is like a drug – you need a little to want another hit, it’s addictive.  That’s why you need to feed your mind a little everyday – we can all find those little successes each day – the key is to find them every single day – don’t miss.