In an effort to change my reading habits for the better (which has been going great this month, by the way – one week in and I haven’t missed a day!), I’ve been doing more critical thinking about what I read.

Here’s what I’ve realized: My “reading bubble” was pretty thick. I love reading, but I’ve broadly read things by people I already agree with. I follow some smart, smart people and the stuff they write is brilliant. But the marginal benefit for reading things from people you already follow, agree with, and interact with regularly is fairly low.

Recently I picked up a book by a brilliant thinker whose work I’m very familiar with. The book is good! It’s well-written and well-researched. But since I already agreed with the premise, it’s not doing much heavy lifting in my brain. Very little about my life is going to change as a result of reading this book. I don’t mean to disparage it – and I certainly don’t mean to indicate that I “already know” everything in it or anything silly like that. Rather, to the extent that the author of this book wants to move its readers to a certain position, I’m already in that position, so the book doesn’t have much to do.

Reading those kinds of books can be really beneficial if you regularly debate that topic with others who don’t agree with the position that you and the author share. One thing that should absolutely be true in your life is this: How diligently you argue about a topic should be directly proportional to how much you know about that topic. So if you’re the kind of person that debates frequently, it’s important to stay educated on your chosen battlefields.

However, I’m not one of those people. I rarely argue. So I don’t necessarily need the book as “argument ammo.” So while the book is great, it’s just not serving my needs in terms of personal growth.

I picked up another book, however. Right from the get-go, I expected to be in disagreement with the author about a number of things. I was dreading reading it, for that reason. I don’t like to argue, even with imaginary people in my head. But in this case, the book is part of research – I am going to write a book on this topic, and you’ve got to read in order to write! Part of why I’m writing this book in the first place is that I think the existing literature on the topic is severely lacking, but you’ve got to be able to back that up – see my point above about arguing only what you know really well.

Here’s the wondrous thing I found, though – I am engaged as heck! I love reading this book! Every new thing I disagree with gives me inspiration; my mind is racing with action. I’m taking notes, looking stuff up, researching my own points in order to challenge the ones in the book, etc. In other words, I am having a blast!

I haven’t been this engaged, excited and active while reading a book in a long time. I largely read for pleasure, so I’ve made the mistake of picking books in my comfort zone. Familiar things. But as far as pleasure goes, I’m having way more fun reading a book I disagree with than I ever did reading books I agree with.

I’ll still read things I agree with, I’m sure. Some books are too good not to read, even if I agree with the conclusion already. But since my reading time is limited, there’s an opportunity cost to every page, and I think that’s going to raise the bar for books I know are already in my comfort zone; fewer will pass the cost/benefit test.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait to read more stuff I think I’ll hate. Besides, it’s always good to challenge your own beliefs and change your mind when the data calls for it, so let’s pop this bubble!

I am a changed man. My life now exists in two distinct phases; the life I lived before today, and the life I shall live after.

The momentous occasions in my own life are paltry and small in comparison. The birth of three wonderful children pales in comparison to the masterpieces of experience that the world can offer you.

I speak often about how important it is to experience the wider world, to open yourself to all the amazing different facets of human life that can be found if you look outside your own bubble.

I don’t have to speak about that any more. I have found the most perfect example. By showing this, I can simply proclaim: “Behold! This is what lies beyond your doorstep if you only go and look. How can you close your eyes to life, when this is what you may experience if you open them?”

Every second of every day, the world grows in two ways.

First, it actually grows. More people are born, more words are written, more things are built and invented. We, collectively, get better at everything and invent new things to get better at. It’s amazing.

But the world grows in another way, too. It grows for you, specifically, you learn more about it.

You see, that huge enormous world out there is far too large for you to ever learn even a fraction of what it contains. No one would argue this, but few really appreciate the scope of what I’m saying. People hear me say stuff like that and think, “yeah, it’s true, I’ll never learn all the works of ancient Chinese literature.” But that’s being way too generous.

If the entire universe contained only the area within one mile from where you’re currently sitting, this would still be true. You don’t know a percent of a percent of a percent of everything that’s out there.

Want to try something? Name every job in existence. Go ahead, name as many as you can. By the time you hit a brick wall around 150 or so, you won’t even have named the tiniest fraction.

There are millions.

You’ve never heard of most of them.

Have you ever seen a ten-year-old get frustrated on a rainy day and say “there’s nothing to do” as they flop on the floor? The adult equivalent is saying that there’s no job that they feel passionate about. Or saying “there are no good men/women out there to date” when you’ve met what, 50? 100? Out of how many hundreds of thousands in your back yard?

Your choices in life are wildly less constrained than you think they are. It’s easy to swing and miss a few times and then think that’s all there is, but that’s ridiculous. I promise you, the wide wide world is absolutely overflowing with bounty. No matter what piece of life satisfaction you want, it’s out there if you chase it.

Every new door you open widens the world that you can search. When most people say they can’t find Thing X, whether it’s a meaningful job, a compatible partner, etc. – it’s because they’ve artificially narrowed their search in some way. They’re looking for jobs in the same mental space they’ve always occupied; their known industries, cities, roles. Or they keep looking for a partner in the same local bar and coming up empty.

Go somewhere new. As you get older, the walls close in on you. You have to constantly fight against that. Go new places, join new clubs, meet new people for no reason.

The world keeps growing, with or without you. Go grow with it.

I’m going to write a book!

I’ve never written a book before. I’ve written lots of other stuff, often in a professional context, though I’ve never “written professionally.” So this is very new to me. I’m going to do a quick SWOT analysis and then lay out my plan.

STRENGTHS

• I’m not going far outside my wheelhouse – this is a topic that’s close to my heart and that I have a lot of expertise in.
• I know how to plan and organize a project like this.
• I generally have pretty strong writing chops.
• I know a lot of published authors, which means I have a lot of contacts to ask questions about that when I’m ready.

WEAKNESSES

• I’ve never written a book before. I’ll make plenty of missteps.
• I don’t have a huge amount of extra time laying around, so carving out the hours in the week to tackle this project will be a challenge.
• The book will involve a lot of research on my part, and I may be underestimating just how much. It might be more intense than I anticipate.

OPPORTUNITIES

• There do not appear to be any widely-read or -circulated books on this topic. I think it’s an important topic that not enough people are talking about.
• Self-publishing these days is easy if I decide to go that route!

THREATS

• It’s entirely possible that no one will care about this topic, or they’ll care about the topic but I won’t have the background to sell it. However, I don’t particularly care about that; just like this blog, I’m primarily writing this book because I want to.

The Plan!

I’m going to dedicate a four-hour block of time once per week in September to write an outline that will include the subjects I need to research. By the end of the 4th block I’ll have a complete outline, including estimated lengths of time to do both research and actual writing. When I write I usually write quickly, but I think the research portion may take upwards of 6 months total. Hopefully less, but I also anticipate making a lot of mistakes that will cause setbacks, and I want to plan my failures in advance.

I’ve been looking for a good reason to learn Evernote better, and this sounds like a great one. I’ll plan to use that as my primary memory bank.

Once I have the outline done, I’ll come back to the planning stage and schedule out blocks of time to write each part and do the research I need done. Then I’ll tackle editing and layout. Then I’ll learn about publishing.

This article was incredibly helpful (even though the site had about every possible chatbot plugin you can stick on a website, ugh), so I’m sure I’ll be returning to it often.

Part of the process of outlining and writing over the next several months will also include budgeting for some things like an editor/proofreader, artist/graphic designer, and quite possibly a (minor) advertising budget. I’m not sure how much of a budget to plan for, but it seems like I could easily spend a few thousand dollars on this (and I’m pretty much planning on not making any actual money back – I want to write because I want to write, not because I expect a huge ROI), so I’ll be setting aside money with that in mind.

I’ll keep you posted as I go!

I’ve often received questions regarding advice for professional emails. It’s easy to craft an email that’s perfectly professional – what’s not as intuitive is how to do that in a way that’s also effective. Perfectly professional emails are boring, and if you’re trying to pitch something, boring = death. So whether you’re doing a cold outreach for a product or sending your value proposal to a prospective employer, here are my tips for crushing the email game.

How do you craft the perfect email? The four “E’s” – Excitement, Empathy, Effort, Execution!

First, show Excitement. If you want to capture someone’s attention, you want them to feel like you’re excited to talk to them specifically. It can’t sound like a form email you send to everyone.

• Bad: “I am writing you today to inquire about a role at your company.”
• Good: “Hello! While searching for opportunities, I saw this amazing one with your company [link]. I was really excited to see this because it’s such a perfect opportunity to create real value for your team. I couldn’t wait to write to you!”

Second, show Empathy. Any time a company is hiring for a position, what they’re really trying to do is solve a problem. If you’re insightful enough to see what that problem is, you can shift the whole conversation, and that always reflects well on you! Don’t talk about the role in terms of how much you’d like it – why should they care? Patients don’t care about the doctor’s job satisfaction, they care about getting well. Make this about them. This is true when selling a product or even asking for a donation – solve a problem!

• Bad: “I have always wanted to be in sales for a company like yours.”
• Good: “I can see from the job listing and from recent news about your company that you’re launching a West Coast team for the first time. Creating a presence in a new market has lots of challenges, and I know making the right hires for that team is one of them.”

Third, show Effort. You’ve got to put some work in early, but you already know how to do that. Imagine a race where you’re actually allowed to start 30 meters ahead of the starting line, but no one does it. Putting in the early effort is like starting farther ahead! But you have to show, not tell. Giving away (a little) free work puts you so far ahead of your competitors in any realm that the ROI is enormous, and you’re crazy if you don’t do it.

• Bad: “If you hired me, I’d be able to help break into that market, because I’m a great prospector.”
• Good: “In order to hit the ground running on a West Coast expansion, I’ve created this list of 30 leads for potential users of your service. These are all companies very similar to those on the East Coast that are already clients of yours, so they fit your demographic. I’ve included contact information for the CEOs on each one, and I’ve checked the sites for your primary competitors to see if any of them are listed as clients, and marked whether or not they were on the list. I hope that’s helpful to you!”

Lastly (and probably most important!) – you have to Execute on all that awesome work you did! Don’t just hand it over and then walk away. Be bold and ask for the connection!

• Bad: “Thanks for reading this, and I hope to hear from you. Have a great day.”
• Good: “I’d love to talk about how this can fit in with your existing sales and marketing plan, and discuss other ways I can add value to your sales team. When is a good time to talk about this role further with you?”

Don’t make it overly long or overly stuffy. “Professional” just means “polite & positive,” so keep that in mind and don’t be afraid to show your character. Keep it short and to the point. I promise you’ll get better results.

Today has been excellent.

I was coming hot off the heels of a month where I missed a few goals for myself, so I really changed a few things. Today, as a result, was awesome.

Failure is the ultimate renewable resource. You’ll never run out of them, and learning to convert them into forward momentum is the ultimate skill.

Something I realized that really helped me get into this mind set is this: Failure and success in your life aren’t zero-sum. I’ll say it again:

Failure and success in your life aren’t zero-sum.

Failure isn’t taking away from your success. It’s adding to it – if you do it right.

Here are a few tips to maximize the value you extract from failures in your life:

1. Be super public about them. Swallow your ego and just talk about your stumbles. When I posted about missing my August New Month’s Resolution, you know what I didn’t get? I didn’t get an outcry of people mocking me, telling me how much respect they’d lost for me, or distancing themselves from me personally and professionally. What I did get was an outpouring of people, publicly and privately, who offered me words of encouragement and actionable advice. So I converted my failure into motivation and knowledge!
2. Always make the day after a failure the day you work the hardest, and then immediately reward yourself for that. Train your subconscious to associate small failures with opportunities for change and giving yourself something pleasant when you do that. Our brains are simple machines in many ways. So yesterday and today I did a lot of work on my goals, accomplished everything I set out to do, and now I’m rocking out to a great playlist and I’m going to watch a movie I love later, probably while treating myself to some good food.
3. Write down what you learned. Don’t let the emotion you experienced during the setback be the thing that carries forward. Minimize it by writing down lessons you can take forward. Commit to writing something publicly so you can’t just whine about it – you have to really write something positive. This cycles back to number 1!

If you do these things, every little failure will give you knowledge, motivation, and self-respect. Often they’ll give you more of those things than successes would have!

The best little side effect of this process: Once it’s in place and you start doing it, you’ll also seek out more failures. They won’t be barriers to you, they’ll be sources of great things in your life, so you’ll seek them out. But you can’t seek out failures without also seeking out the kinds of behaviors that lead to successes. Instead of hiding in your comfort zone, you’ll chase new things, picking up failures along the way like power-ups instead of trying to avoid them and slowing your progress in the process.

Go out there and fail!

I’m going to tell you the story of Jane the Hiring Manager.

Jane is in charge of hiring a new Account Executive for her company. The head of the sales team that this AE will work for has certain goals for his team, and has communicated those goals to Jane, and then put Jane in charge of finding someone to fill the role. Jane does her research, comparing the resumes of the existing Account Executives on the team to their performance levels, and then factoring in things like industry average experience levels and backgrounds. Based on that, she puts together a list of requirements for the role that includes a minimum of 5 years as a Sales Development Representative and a Bachelor’s Degree or better.

Jane posts the job ad listing these requirements and starts to filter through the results. She automatically eliminates any application that doesn’t meet her requirements, since she doesn’t want to waste her time on unqualified applicants. But all the remaining resumes that she gets are unexciting and don’t seem to be good matches; the head of the sales department wants to know why the process hasn’t produced results yet, and Jane can feel the pressure on her.

Deciding that she needs more qualified applicants since the current crop isn’t meeting her company’s needs, Jane decides to add more requirements in order to improve the quality of her pool. She adds a requirement of 2 years as an Account Executive in the same industry and prior knowledge of the company’s specific CRM. The pool of new respondents to this job ad is even worse than before – no one has what she’s looking for.

Then she receives an email, not an application. The email is from Amanda, and it’s addressed to Jane directly. It reads:

“Hello Jane! I was speaking with a mutual contact of ours, John Doe who works as an Account Executive in your company’s sales department. He and I have known each other professionally for several years, and he mentioned that you were looking for a new Account Executive to handle new West Coast accounts. I just moved back from the West Coast myself, where I ran my own sales team for a startup in an industry with very similar sales challenges as yours, and my account executives closed accounts regularly under my direction that John says are very comparable to ones in your firm. I’m looking for a non-managerial role myself so I can focus on the sales process; I moved into sales leadership from operations (startup life!), so I really want to focus on being a contributing member of a team and generate revenue for the company and myself!

“I’ve attached my sales numbers for the last two years so you can see what kinds of accounts my team was working with as well as the improvements over the time I led the team. I’ve also attached a few articles I’ve written on the unique sales challenges of the West Coast, and a sample training doc I worked up for your company, converting those tips to your industry. Let’s talk soon and see how I can help contribute to your team!”

Jane very politely replies:

“Thank you Amanda, but we are looking for someone with 5 years’ experience as an SDR and 2 years’ experience as an AE in our industry, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree. Best of luck in your future career search.”

Here’s your challenge: Can you pinpoint the exact moment where Jane massively messed up?

It shouldn’t be hard!

It was the moment when Jane forgot that her “requirements” were totally not requirements at all.

You see, there’s no cosmic law that says that great Account Executives have to have five years’ experience as a Sales Development Rep. They don’t need to have been Account Executives in the same industry. They don’t need to have Bachelor’s Degrees or prior knowledge of specific software. Those things are all just clues. Indicators. Proxies for knowledge you don’t have as a hiring manager.

Imagine you wanted an apple, but the store you went to stores all their fruit in opaque boxes. They know what’s in them, but they won’t tell you. And they won’t respond if you ask for an ‘apple.’ You have to describe it. So you say you only want fruit that’s red (so no blueberries), and round (no bananas), and roughly fist-sized (no cherries). Then someone offers you a granny smith and you say, “No, it’s not red, and I asked for red only,” totally forgetting that what you actually wanted was an apple, not a “round, red, fist-sized fruit.”

That’s what Jane did. She forgot that what she actually wanted was a great Account Executive, not someone with those requirements.

Those requirements were just proxies for knowledge she didn’t have. Jane doesn’t have a super power that lets her look at people and know if they’ll be a great AE. She can’t just ask directly, because, well, people lie. Or exaggerate, or fluff, whatever. And hiring mistakes are costly. So she has to come up with reasonable filters that give her a good idea of what a good AE might look like.

She started off well! She used the current Account Executives as a baseline. She incorporated their performance. She looked at industry standards. She wasn’t wrong in the beginning.

Where she went wrong was turning her list of clues into a hard-coded list of requirements that she’d never deviate from. Your requirements are educated guesses, so you should always leave room to be wrong – especially if you’re not an industry expert yourself, as in this case. And more importantly, you need to leave room to actually consider the corner cases and exceptions.

If someone meets none of your requirements and applies anyway, it’s probably a smart move statistically to discard them – your time isn’t infinite. But that’s only if they don’t offer you alternative proof! Amanda had tons of evidence that she would be excellent at the role despite not meeting the specific “requirements,” but Jane didn’t consider it.

I know why Jane rejected it. Jane did her initial homework well – she gathered her data, knowing what backgrounds her existing Account Executives had. But she didn’t analyze the data. She knew facts about her successful AEs, but she didn’t have an understanding of why those facts correlated with their success. That deeper knowledge is what held her back.

If you pinned Jane down and said “Can you explain to me exactly why your list of requirements adds up to a great AE, but Amanda’s qualifications wouldn’t?” She wouldn’t know. She doesn’t know what makes a great AE, she only knows what the great AEs have. That’s not the same. That’s why, when she didn’t find anyone the first time, Jane went back and added more requirements, instead of realizing she was taking the completely wrong approach.

I wish this was an apocryphal tale; that I was using this as a hypothetical. But sadly, not only have I actually seen this exact scenario play out multiple times, but usually when I hear about it, I’m hearing about it from the hiring manager, who is complaining about how there are “no good candidates,” and they “can’t believe who had the nerve to apply, as if the requirements aren’t listed on the job ad.”

Fortunately, lots of hiring managers post job ads using the “requirements” language, but then are open to unique pitches. They’re smart, and know a good thing when they spot it. But even then, you may be chasing away amazing talent simply because they’re sure they’ll get rejected even though they would be great because they’re intimidated by the phrasing!

So here’s my challenge to everyone in position to write a job ad or execute a search based on one:

STOP USING THE WORD “REQUIREMENTS!”

Instead, phrase it like this:

“We have a team of amazing Account Executives, and we want to add to it! On average, our existing, successful AEs have:

• 5 years’ experience as a Sales Development Rep before becoming an Account Executive.
• 2 years’ experience handling accounts in the industry before joining our elite team.
• A Bachelor’s degree in communications, marketing, or a similar field.

So if you have those things, we’d love to talk to you! But we’d equally love to talk to you if you can demonstrate you’d make a great Account Executive in some other way. The burden is on you to prove it to us, but we’re all ears!”

Then, work with your department heads! You don’t have to be an expert on the role or industry yourself to be a great recruiter or hiring manager. You just have to be humble about the limits of your own knowledge and be an amazing collaborator! I’ve built incredible teams in areas I had little to no prior knowledge in because I was able to leverage the knowledge of my department heads and combine it with my skill at managing this process. You can do it too. When you get those unique pitches for the role, gather more info and then take that report to your department heads. Watch them light up like a kid at Christmas!

If you do this, I guarantee you’ll have better results in every way. A better candidate experience, better hires, more satisfied department heads and clients, and more personal satisfaction in your work.

There’s an image that’s been floating around the internet for several years in one of a dozen different variations. I think it’s a very helpful thing to think about, so I’m going to share it and analyze it a little with you. They’re all the same with different phrasing, so here’s one I like:

Those circles represent various things you can do with your time. I think it’s great, but it warrants some explanation, and then we’re going to see how we can make this concept work for you.

So first, let’s look at each of the three main circles.

Things People Get Paid To Do: People get paid for all sorts of stuff, from bio-chemical engineering to early childhood intervention. People make each other coffee and shoes, they tell each other about Egypt and meditation, they take each other places and give each other tools. Human wants are infinite, so there are a whole lot of things you can get paid for.

What You Really Enjoy Doing: I love playing with my kids. I love singing, despite my utter lack of proficiency and frequent requests that I stop. I love helping others succeed. I love driving and listening to music – I love each of those things separately, but I especially love them together. I love movies and writing and designing organizational systems. Hopefully you have quite a few things you love, too – there are more things to love than there are stars in the heavens.

What You Are Good At Doing: People can be good at large groupings of skills or individual tasks and everything in between. Someone can be good at “construction” or someone can be specifically good at one particular aspect of it. Someone can be very tech-savvy in a general way or be amazing at one specific program. You can be good at something very concrete like calculus, or you can be good at something harder to measure like leadership. You can be amazing at flicking paper footballs through goalposts made of pencils stuck in erasers at your desk.

So what happens when these things overlap?

“Dream.” When you have an activity that is something that (some) people get paid for and that you really enjoy, but isn’t something you’re good at, you get the Armchair Activities. If you’ve ever been called an Armchair Quarterback or Armchair Economist (or called someone else that), then you know what I mean. It’s being an amateur. I don’t love the term “dream” because something might not necessarily be your dream just because you enjoy doing it, but it works in one sense: If you don’t do anything to improve, it will definitely stay firmly in dreamland.

“Hobby.” When you combine something you enjoy with something you’re good at, but it isn’t something people get paid for, we tend to call that a “hobby.” Some things don’t really feel like hobbies – for instance, I love playing with my kids and I like to think I’m a pretty good dad, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a “hobby” – but you get the idea. These are valuable things in your life and worth embracing, but they’re generally things you’re paying for in one way or another, not things that are paying you.

“Drag.” Hahaha, I don’t love “drag” for this category, but I’ll admit that this is where most people’s jobs end up. Stuff that people pay for and that you’re good enough at for them to pay you, specifically – but that you don’t necessarily love. I don’t like “drag” because honestly I think many people can just do their job and find happiness in other areas of their life, but I’ll also admit that most people doing that don’t reach any sort of exceptional heights in their profession.

And then there’s that middle section. The fountain of youth, El Dorado, Atlantis. Except it totally doesn’t have to be fictional. So let’s look at some actionable advice for how to find a career that puts you there!

One way is the direct approach. Take those three big circles and make them into lists for yourself. Don’t do it all at once – brainstorming is a process that’s hard to force. But make a list for each of the three, put 3-5 things on each list, and then over the next week or two, keep putting stuff on them each time you think of one. Each time you get a compliment on something you’ve done, put it on the “stuff you’re good at” list. Each time you find yourself smiling or whistling, look at what you’re doing and put it on the “stuff you enjoy doing” list. And each time you meet someone cool, interesting, smart or nice – find out what they do and put it on the “stuff people get paid for” list. The lists will grow quite a bit over a few weeks.

Once you have some pretty sizable lists for each circle, look for any overlap. Any tasks that might meet in the middle. For instance, you might have found yourself smiling while you were fixing a leaky pipe under your sink, making you realize that you actually enjoy working with your hands. And someone may have thanked you for doing such a great job helping them assemble their kid’s new go-kart. And then you met someone at the bar who you had a great conversation with that turned out to be in fabrication. Those might have been separate incidents that didn’t really connect until you were looking at them in this way, but now all of a sudden the pieces fit, and maybe you really weren’t meant to be an accountant and that’s just what your parents told you would make you “successful” twenty years ago.

Beyond that, all the technical stuff is easy. Jumping in and figuring out how to go into that industry is a piece of cake compared to deciding to do it. Start with a Google search of “how do I work in fabrication” and go from there! Or heck, just talk to that friend that does it and follow the threads from there.

So that’s one way. But there’s another way that can be just as good. Take one of your existing activities in the Dream, Hobby or Drag categories and upgrade it!

How do you upgrade it? It’s different for each category, but not hard to understand:

Dream: This is pretty simple – practice! You already love this and it’s already something people pay for. You just have to get good at it. Chances are really, really good that the only things holding you back are some combination of A.) the belief that you can’t and B.) an unwillingness to pay the cost in time and effort. Well, A is complete hogwash and B is a switch you have to flip for yourself, but just know that it’s 100% possible to do this.

Hobby: Monetize! For almost every possible hobby, there’s a way to turn it into an enterprise. If you’re good at something and you love doing it, guess what – other people love doing that thing too, aren’t as good as you but want to be, and are willing to pay to make up the difference. Consider – for your hobby, have you ever read a blog, watched a video series, bought a book, etc.? Well, someone made those things – and in one way or another, someone is probably making money from it. Follow the threads!

Drag: This is probably the toughest one, but it’s possible. If you’re good at something and people are paying you money to do it, figure out what you hate about it and see if you can eliminate that aspect without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe you’d love what you’re doing if you had a different boss or a slightly different spread of workload. I made a lot of incremental improvements in my career by figuring out which specific aspects of my job I didn’t like and then moving into something that was really similar but with some slight tweaks. You’d be surprised how much even small tweaks can improve your enjoyment of your task. Try a transfer to a different department, a different schedule, or even the same industry but a different company within it. Then see what’s changed. If you still want to pull your hair out, you can still bail out – but at least you’ll know more.

You might not ever reach the perfect center; the apex of perfection probably doesn’t exist. But you can be constantly moving towards the center, doing more and more stuff that you enjoy, makes money, and you’re good at – and less stuff that doesn’t fall in those categories. That’s the path to a happier life.

This week, I had about a half-dozen occasions where I reached out to other people for small favors.

None of them were huge, or even things I couldn’t have done on my own. Most were information-based. Each of them represented a use of comparative advantage, though – in each case, the small favor took less than ten minutes on the part of the other person, but would have been hours upon hours of work for me, given the disparity in skill set or knowledge base.

While that alone would be a great lesson in why specialization and networking are great, that’s not actually the lesson I want to draw from the experience.

The lesson is that people are awesome.

None of those people asked for anything in return. None of them blew me off. I asked politely for a favor and made it clear I understood that they were doing one for me (in other words, I didn’t try to disguise my asking for a favor as something else; I was up-front). I offered sincere gratitude both before and after. And people came through.

This is a powerful force at your command. Master these three things:

1. Politeness
2. Gratitude
3. Character

And the world is your oyster. Politeness is a virtue I shouldn’t have to explain, but I will offer my own unique definition of it: “Politeness is treating other people’s time as a finite, precious resource that is at least as valuable, if not more so, than your own.” Time is money, money is effort, everything is juice, and so when you take up even a moment of someone’s time you’ve cost them something. The absolute least you can do is make them feel good about the expenditure, and that’s what politeness does.

I’ve already talked about gratitude, but just remember – politeness may get you the favor, but without gratitude, you’ll never get another.

And character, in this context, is simple: Be the kind of person other people are happy to do favors for. That means, among other things – do favors yourself when you can; don’t let their favors be wasted; always show that you’re putting in plenty of your own effort and not relying exclusively on the favors of others.

If you nail down those three things, I promise you that the good people of the world will fall over themselves to help you. People want to help! People want to lift up their fellow humans, do good deeds, and contribute to their society. The heart and soul of mankind is good. Give them the opportunity to make you the focus of their altruism and they will, again and again, if you meet those criteria.

Politeness, gratitude, character. And to everyone that did me a favor this week or ever: I know I thanked you directly, but I thank you here again. Profusely and sincerely. You made my life easier. If I can ever do a favor for you – or anyone – don’t hesitate to ask.