I'm a psychologist, not a magician but I'll do a little magic for you today at
Live On Purpose TV as I share with you how to get and keep a job.
I have a colleague who has a t-shirt that says, "I'm a psychologist not a magician."
I always got a kick out of that because sometimes people want us to perform
magic for them right in their life. I happen to have my magic wand ready to go.
I have a trick prepared for you that will amaze and astound you forever.
These three boxes are going to help us learn how to keep a job. I am prepared
today to practice some magic in your life so look at these three boxes for
starters. I love this trick. For this trick to work, I have to find $100 bill.
There's one. Okay I have a regular hundred dollar bill US currency, I'm
going to place this hundred dollar bill into box one. Now here's how the trick
works, this box does the same thing every
single time. I just give it a little shake, you can hear that hundred dollar
bill in there. Okay and that should be about long enough and then as I open up
that box and dump out the contents on the table,
Look, $200! Wow! Are you as excited as I am about this? Who wants one of these?
Wouldn't that be awesome? If you had box one and it always gave you the same
result, how often would you be putting money into box one? Yeah, me too. I'd be
hiring people to do it while I sleep because you put one in you get two out.
That is so cool.
Awesome. I'm going to put that one right back in my pocket and then let's use
this other one to test out box two. Are you excited for box two? Okay, here we go same
thing. We'll put that
hundred dollars in to box two. Now I'll do the same thing that I did with box one,
I'm just going to give it a little shake, you can hear it in there. Okay, that
should be enough and every single time, here's the result from box two. What do you
know? A hundred bucks! How awesome is that? You're not as
excited about box two, I wasn't either. That guy showed this to a kid not too long
ago and he said, "What's the point right?" Hey, at least we got our hundred
dollars back, that's good, right? Now as you compare box 1 and box 2,
what do you notice about how excited you would be about having either one of
these boxes? How hard would it be to convince other people to put their own
money into box 2? Hmm, it's going to be a little harder now, right? Especially if
they have a choice between box 1 and box 2. Okay are you excited about this one?
Some people get nervous about box 3. Let's try this same $100 bill into box 3,
we'll just put it in there. Okay, now we're going to shake it up. Can you hear it in
there? Takes about that long, that's probably
good enough. Okay, now let's dump out box 3. See what
we find. Hey, wait a minute. 20 bucks? How excited
are you about box 3? Yeah, not so much right? You know what, I showed this trick
to one of my clients recently and he says, "I got five of those at home." I don't
know what he was referring to. Box 3 where you put in $100 and you get $20
out. How excited are you about using box 3? Not so much. In fact, you're going to
stay as far away from that box as you possibly can, right? How often are you
going to be putting money into that box? Once, right? That's plenty. Once you see
what it does, you're not going to use that. Now I know this, I'm not a magician
but these boxes are going to give you a sense of what we're talking about today
in terms of value creation. Remember the video is about how to get and keep a job.
What does the box represent and it is real and it
this in your life. What does the box represent? Now some of you might be
thinking, well it's an investment or it's a job, maybe it's a job right?
You put something into it, you get something out of it. Okay, pretty good answers but
think about it. If in an investment, for example, if I put my money into an
investment, where is my money going physically? Into the hands of another
person. Doesn't go into a box, some magic box somewhere, goes into the hands of
another person, right? So the box represents a person. Think about that for
a minute. A person and if that is true, then you have to be one of these and I
think we switch back and forth a little bit but check out what I mean by this.
Either you are prepared to create more value
than you consume, that's box one or it's a zero-sum game which means that we're
breaking even, at least we're not losing anything, that's box two or you're
consuming more than you produce, that's box three. You've heard the phrase "you
suck"? That's what we're talking about because, and I don't mean that in any
rude kind of a way, I mean you suck resources, it takes more to sustain you
than what you are producing, that's box three, that's how I'm defining that term.
So it's got to be one of the three, which one are you? I got to tell you a quick
story about my dad that illustrates this really well. My dad is a woodworker and
he likes to turn things on his leg, this is something that he created. Now that
might not look special to you right now but if you were to look through this end
of it, you would see that this is a kaleidoscope and it's a beautiful image
that you can see as you look through this beautifully handcrafted wood,
kaleidoscope. Let's say that my dad is sitting there and he's just kind of
twiddling his thumbs what he's gonna do and I approach him and
say, "Hey, dad. Why don't you make some of those cool kaleidoscopes because I'd
like to have one in my office." He's like, "Well I would but I don't have any
wood or glass or mirrors so that I would need to make a kaleidoscope." "Well, dad,
what if I gave you twenty bucks, okay? What if I gave you twenty bucks, could
you go create some? Could you get enough materials to make?" "Yeah, I could
probably make ten of them with twenty dollars of material." "Oh really? Awesome."
So I put my twenty dollars into my dad's hands, okay. Box one, he does what with the
money? Cause my money goes from my hands to his hands, right? Is this what happens in
a job, by the way? Keep thinking about that. My money goes
into his hands. Now what does he do with the twenty bucks? Will he buy some wood
and some mirrors and some glass and I don't know even know how he does it but
he takes all of these materials and he applies his human life value, his skills
and his knowledge to those raw materials and he makes ten of these. Now can he sell
these? Yes and he does, in bazaars and fairs and things like that and he can
get up to fifty bucks a piece for these kaleidoscopes. I put in twenty bucks,
dad goes out there and makes ten at 50 bucks a piece. Do the math. Five hundred
dollars worth of value. Can he turn around and give me $40 back as a return
on my investment no sweat? Yes, he can. My dad is box one. Does he lose in doing
that? Not at all. Had a kid in my office, kid, he's 21 years old, okay, still living
in his mom's home and I was having this discussion with him, I wanted to see if
he got it. I said, "Look, I live about two miles from
here, I've got a lawn that needs mowing, I want to hire someone to mow my lawn."
It's just a little bitty lawn, okay, little wedge-shaped thing on a cul-de-sac and
it takes me maybe a half hour to do the whole thing mowing it and trimming and I
said, "What if I were to offer a job opportunity for you or anyone else who
wants to to apply to mow my lawn and I'm willing to pay 25 bucks for you to
mow my lawn?" Okay now I've got his attention, he's like, "25 bucks half-hour
work, oh yeah, I'm down." "Okay, before I hire you, I got to know this. I'm not
going to hire anybody until they can answer this question. If I am willing to pay you
25 bucks to mow my lawn, the question I have is, will you do a $25 job for me?
I got to know that before I can hire you." What do you think this guy said? Oh yeah,
he's like, "Yeah yeah absolutely I'll do a $25 job for you, you bet." I said,
"You're fired, get out of here. I don't want box 2." He didn't expect to hear that.
If I'm willing to pay 25 bucks to have my lawn mowed, what kind of a job do I
want? I want a $50 job. Do you see what I'm talking about?
I want a $50 job, see the break-even guy is going to do just what's required, right?
He's going to break even, just no loss, no gain, just do what's required, right?
I don't want that guy, I certainly don't want this guy because this guy is
sneaking into my freezer out there in the garage and stealing ice cream, alright?
He's leaving big swatches in the lawn and it doesn't look good at all,
he doesn't even sweep the walks. This guy's going to do what's required. What kind of a
job do I want? I want one of these. I want box one and if I've got ten kids lined
up to mow my lawn, eight of them are going to do this. One of them's going to do
that, one of them's going to do that, which one am I going to hire? That one, everytime.
Who might call him next week? If I get a $50 job out of him,
he's got my business all summer long. I drove around for several years with this
license plate on my truck. Now you know what it means. How do you get and keep a
job? You be box 1. You commit to always create more value than you consume.
You can try this in a job interview too. You know, when it comes up, why should we hire you?
You know what you're going to say next time?
Because I am box 1. It'll be like, "What do you mean?" Share this with them. Honestly,
one of my clients did this in a job interview, no kidding.
He got the job because he showed his employer that he understands this
concept. There is no reason any employer would hire you unless you create more
value than you consume. That's the only reason that they would hire you.
Pretty magical huh? Be box 1, that's a great solution to how to get and keep the job.
I'll see you tomorrow at live on purpose TV.