Excel in your career

 So last week in our staff meeting the conversationcame about after we were reading the book, Contagious, and I asked the question fromeverybody. I said, hey, can you tell me why I make ita requirement for us to read a book a month? We've been doing this for seven-and-a-halfyears. Why? And I got four responses. One of them said, Pat, you want us to improve. I said, okay, great. What else? The other person said, you want our mindsto be working and thinking about work after hours. That was an interesting one. Another person said, it brings us together. Because we're advancing together. Another person said ideas. And I said, "Everything is great. But let me tell you why we read books." I said, "I want all of you to want to makemore money. How many of you guys want to make more money?" And they raised their hands. Now remember, this is not sales. This is W-2 jobs. How many of you want to ask for a raise andto get a raise? And everyone said, "I want to get a raise." Now this is me, teaching my staff how to askfor a raise. I said, "There's three things that you needto be doing to constantly be advancing in your career. And if you don't, you're not going to advancein your career." They said, "What is it?" And I wrote it out, so I'm sharing that withyou. One is attitude, effort, and progress. Let me explain. Attitude. You'll have a lot of talented people in yourcareer that you'll hire. I've hired so many incredibly ridiculous talentedpeople with bad attitudes. And they don't last. And they don't last anywhere they go. Because anywhere they go, nobody likes them. No one likes a bad attitude. So when it comes down to attitude, a savinggrace for a person not to get fired, is a positive attitude. Because you've got three opportunities withattitude. One is a person that comes in, they're notpositive, they're not negative, it's just no one knows they're around. Nobody does. You can walk by their cubicle 50 times andthey get fired one day, and you don't even know they got fired. Because no one knows their attitude. Because you never see them. Because they don't say anything. So there's not a positivity or negativity. At least you remember the negative person,and you remember the positive person. But you don't remember the person in the neutral,right? Negative ones, eventually, they're contagious. Anytime I look at a resume somebody givesyou a resume to hire, I look at how many jobs this person had the last two, three, four,five years.

If it's multiple jobs, one after another afteranother after another, there is something there. This can't constantly be the company. Companies don't let go of good people. They just don't. They want to keep good people. There's something that didn't work out sixdifferent times, and most of the time it comes down to attitude. So then positive attitude. We had an employee in the room and I said,"Hey, let me talk to you guys about her." I pointed out her. And I said, "You know you almost got firedsix months ago, four months ago." She said, "Yeah, I know." I said, "How did you know?" She said, "Everybody told me I'm about toget fired." I said, "Do you know why you didn't get fired?" She said, "Why?" So I had an executive meeting, meeting withthe executives, and I said, "This person needs to get fired, that person needs to get fired,let's keep these three. Let's give a raise to this person," etc. etc. We have these meetings. I said, "You were on the verge of gettingfired because you had no clue what you were doing with your job." And she said, "Yeah, honestly, I had no idea." I said, "But the only reason why we didn'tfire you, is because you have such a positive attitude. You're contagious to be around. That's your saving grace. You have no idea how valuable that is." And she's like, "Oh my gosh, this is so amazing." I said, "You stay like that, and you're goingto do great things with your life." The next one is effort. Let me explain to you the effort. You know who the guys in the middle are? I call them 7:59 to 5:01. They clock in the minute before, and theyclock out the minute after. I've got to go watch my T.V. shows. And there's no way in the world I'm workingone minute more for this corporation than I'm supposed. I'm not doing that. I'm just not doing that. Right? It's like a religion to them. Still cool, you're not negative. Because these guys on the bottom, you knowwhat they do? Let me tell you about their effort.

These guys for whatever reason, they're sickon Mondays and they don't feel too well on Friday afternoons. I don't know what it is. Their timing is incredible on when they don'tfeel well. Right? Now I've worked jobs before and I know whyon Mondays because you want to have a longer weekend and I know why Fridays because youwant to have a longer weekend, but eventually people figure that part out. I mean, everyone knows what's going on there. These guys [positive] always move up. I remember working at many of my jobs thatit goes back to, if we had to do certain things at Bally's and I was off at 8:00 or 9:00 or10:00, I was there till midnight. I didn't have to be there until midnight. I didn't get paid those hours. No one paid me for those hours. But I stayed till midnight. Now what happened when I stayed there tillmidnight? One, I grew for myself, but people startedsaying, "Pat's one of the hardest working guys in the company." I became the rookie of the year. I got recognition. I got those accolades, but you know what elsehappened? Let me tell you what else happened. It prepped me that one day if I was ever goingto be put into an executive position, I already know about the effort part. I'm not afraid of working hard. I don't mind putting in 12, 13, 14, 16 hourdays. Because I've done it. It's a muscle now. I'm always going to be needed because mostpeople don't work that hard. So for you watching this, I promise you, thesetwo [attitude and effort] alone, you're going to move up in your career. I promise you that. Because most people don't work too hard, andmost people don't consistently have a positive attitude. These two, you'll learn the other parts. Now let's get to the last one. The last one is progress. Progress to me is I call a meeting. And this meeting, I say, "These five peopleI want to be part of this meeting. We're going to do an ideation meeting on anew software, on a new technology, on a new system, on a new product, on a new show, onwhatever." I sit there, as the person who called themeeting, and I watch on who's giving feedback.

The person that doesn't give feedback, I don'tinvite to the next meeting. For what? You don't give feedback. What's the purpose of you sitting there? To look pretty? I mean, listen, we don't get paid to modelhere, right? We get paid to come up with ideas. Okay. Cool. The person that constantly comes up with ideasand they don't get - what's the attitude - when somebody gets ideas shut down and they becomedefensive and they - they don't freeze. When you say, "No, we can't do the idea rightnow." And they go like this [arms crossed]. Because you're too sensitive now. Instead, this person says, "Okay, cool. No problem." Boom. Next. Because sometimes some ideas are just notworkable. And they keep feeding more and feeding more,and man, this dude's got a great attitude, he's so enthusiastic about being here andhe's working hard, and he's giving great ideas, trifecta, I like this guy. Let's keep him long term. Let's give him more responsibility and movehim up in the company and give him a raise. That's the progress. How can I make me better? How can I make the company better? How can I make the industry better? How can I make this thing grow faster? How can I make this thing look better? How can we make the process safer? How can we make this a funner place? How can we grow better? Everything's about better, better, better,better. And the one on the bottom is the one thatwalks around and says, Oh my gosh. I hate working here. Did you hear what he said? Here he goes again. Did you hear what he said? Oh, here he goes. You know none of this stuff works. Bitching, bitching, bitching, bitching. These two (bad attitude, bad progress) becomebest friends. They're typically the same person. Somehow, some way, they join the same club. I don't know what it is. They attract each other. But these guys (good attitude, good progress)somehow, some way, always move up.

I can't tell you why it is. It's just what it is. So if you're watching this right now, whetheryou're an entrepreneur, whether you're a businessman, whether you're successful already and an executive,whether you're running a company that did $180 million last year in revenue and you'refeeling like it's great, always go back and take an inventory of yourself and the peopleon your team. How's the ideation of you constantly figuringout how to make things better [progress], how is your effort being put in [effort],how's your attitude? Take the assessment of your people and thepeople that are there [positive], help them move up and if you're somebody that's notdoing these three, try to become a trifecta. Ask yourself every day, "How's my attitudetoday? How's my effort today? How am I becoming better at making ideas andprogressing the company?" And the more you do that, if the company you'reworking at right now, treats you like crap, and I'm talking sincerely, not you watching,yeah, that's why I'm not moving up in life - but you're really lazy - I'm talking you'vegot a great positive attitude regularly, you regularly work hard, and you always come upwith ideas and they still don't treat you well, eventually, someone's going to takenotice. That I promise you. Eventually, someone's going to take notice. You're going to move up. It's inevitable. It's a law. It works for everybody. So just focus on these three areas. Mario, let's get our favorite pillow. Okay, today we have Mario throwing us thepillow instead of Paul. We got two new team members here behind us. One likes - you said comedy? He like comedy. And this one wants to be a producer is whathe wants to be. And we just talked about the question whyDane Cook is no longer, he hasn't been on the scene for awhile. Mario gave us some feedback why, that someof you guys may remember Dane Cook. Some of you don't. But regardless, if you haven't yet subscribedto this channel, let's see if I'm doing this right. Am I doing it right? Is this good here? The guys are trying to critique me on whereto put my finger.