The Morris Plan

That Job is Not Just Boring -- It's Killing You!

Continuing with my theme of the importance of working for yourself, I now offer evidence that your boring job may well be killing you.

In an article to be published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, Annie Britton and Martin Shipley of University College London will report that job boredom can kill you.

They analyzed questionnaires completed by London civil service employees between 1985 and 1988, with an age range of 35 to 55. The employees were asked if they had felt bored at work during the previous month.  After approximately 25 years had passed, Shipley and Britton looked to see how many of the employees had died by April 2009.

The employees who had responded that they had been very bored were two and a half times more likely to die of a heart problem than those who hadn't reported being bored.

The researchers try to blunt the report a little by saying that the true risk factor might be the lack of exercise and good diet.  In other words, a depressed person might report being bored, and would likely be the sort of person that does not have the energy to exercise.  But to me that just sidesteps the reality.  If the person had a fulfilling job or, far better, their own business, they would likely not be depressed or bored and would be more likely to exercise.

Bottom line:  That boring, life-sucking job is killing you.  February is National Start a Business Month.  Make it happen.

Reducing Calories Still the Only Fountain of Youth

One objection I sometimes receive to The Morris Plan is that it is too low in calories. During the initial phase of the diet, calorie intake is just 750 to 1200 calories, depending on how aggressive you want to be. But research and reality are both on my side.

Most have seen the dramatic results achieved by the dieters on The Biggest Loser, where they are made to consume probably no more than 20% of their prior caloric intake. Yet, while those diet coaches see the wisdom of dramatic caloric reduction, even they feel that there needs to be some minimum number of calories consumed and would argue against the 750 to 1200 calories I promote.

Actually, the calorie consumption I suggest is not only healthy, it is life-extending according to researchers. It has long been know that calorie restriction is the only real "fountain of youth" yet discovered. Recent research has refined this knowledge further, and determined that reducing your caloric intake slows the aging process. In other words, you don’t need to reduce your caloric intake to starvation levels to get the life-extending benefits, you need only to reduce your calories below what you are taking in now. Greater reductions yield greater benefits, but any reduction is beneficial.

So, while people like things to be black and white, here is another example from the field of nutrition and diet where people with seemingly different ideas can both be right. My plan of 750 to 1200 calories is not intended to be a life long plan, but is only an initial phase designed to slim you down as fast as possible. It is not unhealthy at all in that context. On the other hand, the coaches on The Biggest Loser encourage their charges to eat, and within the context of the strenuous exercise program they follow that is also sound advice. The participants still receive the life enhancing benefits of reduced calories because even though they are consuming more than I recommend, the number of calories is a huge reduction from their prior levels.

I constantly preach moderation in all things. There are actually groups that have formed with the goal of working together to restrict their caloric intakes as much as possible. A July 9, 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Two Mammals’ Longevity Boosted contained this quote from the president of one such group. Commenting on the research showing that caloric reduction extends life expectancy, Brian Delaney, president of the North Carolina-based Calorie Restriction Society, stated, "It's all consistent with what human practitioners of calorie restriction have always believed. Any degree of restriction beyond what you're currently eating will confer health benefits and will slow the aging process." The group claims 3000 members, many of whom restrict their eating to near starvation levels.

I’ve seen some of these people interviewed; it’s not a pretty sight. They’ve lost touch with the message of moderation that I call out to my wife every time I go on a motorcycle trip over her objections. "It’s not all about preserving your life." I’ll trade extending my life by twenty years by being ridiculously skinny and not being able to enjoy eating for extending my life by ten years by just keeping my calories on the low side while still enjoying the occasional pizza and beer nights.

Update -- September 24, 2009:  Of course this story is anecdotal, but given the nature of the above posting I had to add a link to a news item I just read.  The world's oldest man is currently Walter Breuning, age 113.  (I've noticed lately that these oldest man stories are a little depressing.  "The oldest man is Joe Dokes at 114.  Oh, wait a minute, now the oldest man is Bill Jones at 113.")  Seeing Breuning is very uplifting because he is still really sharp -- not one of those old timers you see in the news stories staring blankly at a birthday cake.  As they always do with this type of story, the reporter asked Breuning for his secret to long life.  His answer was that he only eats two meals a day.  He is 5' 8" and has weighed the same 125 pounds for the past 35 years.  He says that you should push yourself away from the table while you are still hungry. "You get in the habit of not eating at night, and you realize how good you feel. If you could just tell people not to eat so darn much," he said.  Again, only anecdotal, but Breunig certainly supports the claim that restricting caloric intake is a means to life extension.

In All Things, Moderation -- Vegetarianism As An Eating Disorder

I’ve always considered vegetarianism to be an eating disorder in many. And while I haven’t yet convinced the American Psychiatric Association to include vegetarianism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), I now have research to support that vegetarianism is a strong indicator of a possible eating disorder.

Stay with me and I’ll explain.

A recent dietary study was led by nutritionist Ramona Robinson-O'Brien, an assistant professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Minnesota. The study concluded that adolescent and young adult vegetarians were four times more likely than their meat-eating peers to binge eat and engage in extreme weight-control measures such as taking laxatives and forcing themselves to vomit. The study further concluded that teenage vegetarians as well as young experimenters — those who try it but abandon it — may be at higher risk for other eating disorders compared with their peers.

The study authors suggest that parents and doctors should be extra vigilant when teens suddenly become vegetarians. Although teens may say they're trying to protect animals, they may actually be trying to camouflage some unhealthy eating behaviors.

This is why I’ve always been suspect of vegetarians. I have no beef with the dietary choice, it is the reason for the choice.  In all things, moderation. True, if the stated reason for the diet is not to eat God’s little creatures, then it’s basically an all or none proposition.  I can respect that; I'll order a steak when we meet for lunch, but I can respect that position (although I love all the conditions – "I’m a vegetarian, but I still eat fish, dairy and eggs.")  But if the stated reason for the diet is health, then that’s a potential disorder. There is no net health gain by skipping an evil Whopper Jr. with 290 calories and 12 grams of fat, only to then drink a Starbucks Venti Frappuccino with 680 calories and 21 grams of fat while singing the vegetarian song (Incense and Peppermints by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, I believe).

The rational dietary response should be, "meat contains fat, so I’m going to keep my consumption of meat to a minimum." Not, "meat is evil and I’m going to remove any chance of it from my diet, to the point that I don’t want to eat something cooked in a pan that might have previously been used to cook meat." The latter shows too much fixation on one component of a diet, and that dietary fixation explains why the study reached the predictable conclusions.  For an interesting first person story of using vegetarianism as a means to mask an eating disorder, go here.

Radio doctor and author, Dr. Dean Adel, who I have always found fairly reasonable, will lecture you on the dietary problems with eggs and cheese, but acknolwedges that his weekend ritual is to make himself a big cheese omelet.  Wine is bad if consumed in excess, but a single glass offers health benefits.  Even drinking too much water can be deadly, but does that mean it should be avoided?

In all things, moderation.  Even your dietary limitations.

When Conducting a Job Search, It’s Easy to Distinguish Yourself

It’s not often that I get to observe the hiring process first hand. I’ve had ZERO turnover in my employees since starting my firm, which says something about my screening process and their loyalty.

We recently found ourselves in need of a part time paralegal, which afforded me the opportunity observe and offer insights into the recruitment and hiring process. Here is how it started:

I placed an employment ad on a job site, explaining that we were looking for a part time paralegal. I stressed this point, imploring people not to apply if they were really interested in full time work.

I like prospective employees to apply a certain way, so the ad directed them to a prior article on this blog, entitled, "One Employer’s View of Job Hunting Screw-ups." I asked that they read the article before submitting their resume. The article made these strong suggestions:

1. Read the listing carefully to make sure you understand what the employer is seeking;

2. Always submit resumes as PDF files, not in Word format (unless requested to do so); and

3. Target the employer.

I received 57 emails over a five day period. Out of those 57 applicants:

– 27 submitted their resumes in Word format when PDF was specifically requested.

– 13 did not attach resumes at all, but instead just put the resume text in the email (some offering the explanation that they did not know how to create a PDF).

– 17 submitted resumes as PDF files as requested.

– 2 made reference to the wrong job in the email.

– 5 specifically wrote that they were looking for full time work.

– 6 mentioned why they were looking for part time work.

You’ve probably heard friends and acquaintances bemoaning the job market. They may have said something like, "I’ve sent out over 500 resumes and have not received a single call." May I humbly submit that the above numbers may say why?

A good paralegal needs to be very detail oriented, and while I am of course ultimately responsible for his or her work, I would hope that he or she would catch details that I might miss. If an applicant submits a resume in the wrong format, regarding a job that requires attention to hundreds of procedural rules, how can I reasonably consider that applicant? Thus, as an initial matter, the applicants that took a few extra seconds to read the job ad and submitted their resumes in the proper format improved their odds from one out of 57 to one out of 17. (I received one very angry email telling me how unreasonable I was being "to expect people to buy Adobe in this economy." You don’t need to buy anything to convert a Word file to PDF. See www.primopdf.com.)

The ad also expressed that while the job was part time, we were very flexible on the schedule. Five of the 17 distinguished themselves by explaining why part time work was perfect for their situations, thereby providing me with confidence they were not just settling for part time work until they could find a full time position.

And finally, only TWO took it to the next level and did a little detective work to determine to whom they were responding. I don’t know whether they did this because the article suggested it or it was already their practice, but these two people targeted their email directly at my firm’s areas of law, making it sound as though this was a fit made in heaven.

The article also suggests that an applicant should "follow up without being a pain" in order to keep their name in front of the employer. Out of the 57 applicants, just ONE sent follow up emails.

I might be tempted to think that some of these applicants gave this particular job a half-hearted effort because it was only a part time position, but these numbers were typical of what I have seen in the past. The numbers demonstrate how, with just a few extra minutes of effort, you can move yourself to the top of the stack and greatly improve your odds. 

Stop thinking quantity and go for quality.  Focus on the job, and customize your approach.  Even your resume should be tailored to that specific job.  And if you don't quite match the qualifications sought by the employer, sell yourself and explain why that will not be a problem.

Use Your Company's Small Size to Full Advantage

I need all you big businesses to skip this blog post. I have a private message for smaller businesses.

Are they gone? Okay.

Rather than be intimidated by your bigger competitors, you should be smug in the knowledge that it is your nimbleness that permits you to clean their clocks. The Internet and the social networking it brings gives you a huge advantage.

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal reminded me of an incident that occurred when I was working as an associate at the world’s largest law firm, all those many years ago. The firm had just introduced email, and decided that in order to standardize the email addresses, all employees would use the initials from their first and middle names, followed by their last name, i.e., APMorris@hugefirm.com. But who knows the middle names of fellow employees? Every time you wanted to send an email to another employee or provide the email address to someone else, you had to call the person and ask for their middle initial. Not very efficient.

At this firm, everyone had a printed firm directory sitting on their desk. Always the trouble maker, I suggested to management that we add the middle initial of everyone to the next printing of the firm directory. (Having an on-line directory was far too sophisticated, and would have required hours of training on how to access it.) I expected a resounding "doh!" to ring down from the management offices. Instead, a committee was formed to consider my proposal. Memos were distributed, taking a poll of the attitudes of the employees to the middle initial proposal. In the end, it was decided that publishing the middle initials was too invasive because some employees are sensitive about their middle names, and having them in print could lead to embarrassing questions. A policy was issued permitting employees to decide if their initials would be included in the directory. To send an email to anyone who had opted out required the old approach of picking up the phone and asking them for the information. This afforded them the opportunity to refuse to disclose the middle initial if they were uncomfortable with your request.

The WSJ article was discussing how many large companies are now considering adding blogs to their marketing mix. I’ve been blogging almost since the day the Internet went commercial. Not in the technical sense, because the feed system had not been established, but with the use of Frontpage I’d post my thoughts on my website whenever something noteworthy happened. Still do: http://www.toplawfirm.com/recent.html

These companies are just now getting to blogging, while you’ve been there done that and added Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites and techniques to your marketing mix. Keep your size advantage firmly in mind, and use it to stay in front of the plodding dinosaurs.

Practice Makes Permanent

I was watching a humorous video of a race car driver, apparently competing in a cross-country race. The car was equipped with an inside camera to permit watching the driver and where he was going. The driver lost control, left the race course and ended up in a lake. As the car slowly sank beneath the waves, you see and hear him reach down and set the parking brake. Obviously it made no sense to set the parking break on a sinking car, but that was what he had always done when his car came to a stop, so practice had made that response permanent, regardless of the circumstances.

This reality is not always humorous. When I attended the police academy, we studied what had come to be known as the "Newhall Incident" wherein four police officers were killed by two criminals. Four trained officers in two cars pulled over a car containing two suspects, knowing it was a high risk stop. The suspects exited and opened fire, all four police officers returned fire, yet the suspects were able to rush the position of the officers and kill them. How was that possible?

For context, this was back when police carried revolvers, so after firing six rounds the officer had to dump out the shells and reload the weapon. Most officers carried "speed loaders" which were a little device holding six bullets in a circle so the gun could be reloaded with one click instead of one bullet at a time. In a full-on gun battle the reloading time is crucial; that’s why most officers now carry semi-automatics, so they can just slap in a new clip.

In the Newhall Incident, when the pockets of the slain police officers were checked, one or more of them were found to contain spent shell casings. In other words, in the heat of a gun battle, when the time spent reloading could mean the difference between life or death, time had been spent pocketing the spent shells before reloading.  Why would they have done that?

As it turned out, this particular police agency liked to keep its shooting range free of clutter and debris. When the officers were trained to shoot, and every time thereafter when they would return to the range to train or get their annual qualifications, the practice was to dump the rounds into their hands and put them in their pockets so they didn’t end up on the ground, messing up the shooting range. This practice had become so permanent and instinctual, that even in battle the officers could not deviate from this pattern.

You probably won’t be involved in a gun battle any time soon, but the example shows just how firmly ingrained your practices can become. The question for you is, how much of your life is being lived on auto-pilot, following practices that have become permanent, even when they are counterproductive or even self-destructive?

People that come to my office often can’t answer what should be the most basic of questions about their lives. Someone will tell me that they just got fired from a job that they have hated for the ten years they worked there. And they want to sue to get that job back! When I ask why they would work at a miserable job for ten years, I get that deer in the headlights look. When I ask why they didn’t try to find another job during those ten years, they either can’t answer or mumble something about family commitments. The real answer is that they were on auto-pilot the entire time and never had the initiative to switch it back to manual and direct their own lives.

Spend a few days aggressively questioning everything you do in order to uncover all the "auto-pilots" you have adopted in your life. Why am I working at this job, why am I forcing myself to live with this commute, why do I always have lunch with these people, why am I really not doing anything to make myself more employable or to start my own business?  If there are no good answers, change the practices. 

Use the Power of Delegation

I was reading in the paper another one of the hundreds of tales of woe, wherein someone was decrying his inability to find work in this tough economy.  In this particular case, a 41-year-old tool-and-die maker lost his job after working 20 years at the same plant.  His resume has just one work entry and his education consists only of a high school diploma.  His job search efforts have been fruitless, so he has decided to go to a technical college for a two-year mechanical drafting program.

So what does this poor soul have to do with delegation?  I’ll bet if we asked him, he would say that during those 20 years he was barely scraping by.  He certainly could not afford to hire others, he would argue, and had to do every errand around the house himself.  He had no time to go to school.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Whatever was keeping him busy after work, whether it was watching the kids or working on the house, if he had delegated those duties, at least part of the time, he could have freed up enough time to attend school at night, even if just once or twice a week.  Over 20 years, he could have earned about four PhDs if he was so inclined.  Instead of starting his education while unemployed, his toughest decision now would be whether he wants to teach calculus at Cornell or political science at Penn State.  I exaggerate to make the point, but he certainly would be in a position to aim higher than drafting school.

I speak from personal experience.  I earned my college degree while working full time as a police officer and running a business, and continued to work through law school.  One of the attorneys in my office began as a legal secretary, obtained her paralegal certificate, and then attended law school at night for four years, all while working full time and raising a son.  She used the power of delegation to free up her time enough to allow her to attend classes three nights a week.

It’s a major cliche, but one that fails to resonate in the minds of so many.  Our attorney was 37 when she started law school, and when some people felt compelled to point out to her that she would be 41 when she graduated, she would just respond, “How old will I be in four years if I don’t go to law school?”  If only the tool-and-die maker had lived that philosophy. 

As stated in my prior post, you have an hourly rate that should not be squandered.  That hourly rate can be immeasurable if by delegating house work, yard work and occasionally the child care to others, you free yourself to improve your situation.

Never Forget Your “Hourly Rate”

A few years back, a local hamburger chain advertised that it was going to sell a burger, fries and a Coke for the 1950s price of a dollar. People waited in line for hours to get this super deal.

Today, Denny’s was giving away free breakfasts. I took a different route to work in order to drive by a Denny’s and see if people were waiting in line. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were only about ten people in line, but I later saw on the news that at some locations people were, again, waiting hours to get the meal.

This scenario is emblematic of a larger problem that holds back so many people. Never forget that your time has value. By whatever formula you decide to use – what you think your time should be worth or the actual value based on your current job – assign a value to your time. Then apply that number to your daily activities to determine what they are costing you.

Let’s say you are an employee earning $75,000 a year. With benefits, that’s probably closer to $100,000 a year in terms of your total compensation. Assuming around 2000 hours a year of working hours, your effective hourly rate is $50. If you decide you are worth more than that, all the better, but let’s use $50 per hour for our analysis.

When you sit down tonight to watch two hours of American Idol, know that entertainment experience is costing you $100 ($75 if you Tivo it and fast forward through the commercials). I’m not making a value judgment here; you may well decide that $100 is a fair price to pay for American Idol, but you need to make that informed decision.  Many of the people waiting in line at Denny's were paying a very high price for that "free" meal because they don't place any value on their time.

Now it is true that in my situation the hourly cost is quite literal. If I push myself away from the television and go sit at the computer, I can bill hours that I would otherwise delegate to others. But don’t permit yourself to rationalize that your situation is completely different. If your business is not yet in place, that time can be spent getting it there. If you are committed to being a drone employee, the time can be spent looking for a better job or on continuing education for advancement. 

I’ll make the point once more in anticipation of the naysayers. This is not to say that every hour must be productive. Down time has a value as well. But knowing what your activities are costing you allows you to make an informed decision.

Next time: The power of delegation.

Maximize your sales IQ

Everyone sells. Some professions are identified as sales positions, but in reality we all employ sales techniques in our lives and careers to some extent. I have studied sales techniques for decades and find that there are some fundamental mistakes being made by all of us "salespeople."

Don’t offer too much information.

My clients always want more and more information presented at trial, and despite my track record are nervous when I keep telling them that "less is more." Understandably, they think that presenting 100 reasons why they should win is better than presenting ten. In reality, every new fact and theory presents another reason for the jury to find against you.

For example, I recently obtained a million dollar verdict for a client after the defendant failed to repay a loan. The loan amount was around $200,000, but I was able to convince the jury that the utter failure to repay any of the amount owed demonstrated fraudulent intent, so the jury also awarded punitive damages.

We knew that the defendant had failed to repay loans made by others, and my client wanted me to make that fact a part of the trial. Her desire was understandable, because that evidence would have shown a pattern. But that evidence would have presented a new variable. What if defendant could have convinced the jury that the other loans were repaid, or there was some valid reason why they weren’t. The strength of our claim would suddenly be linked to the strength of the evidence as to the unrelated loans.

When you are selling – whether it is a timeshare, project idea, or yourself at an interview – don’t throw out every perceived beneficial fact. A prospective employee once told me about all the volunteer work she was doing, presumably to impress me with her giving nature. But that led me to ask about her time commitments to all this volunteer work, and it soon became clear that her work schedule would have to accommodate the demands of her volunteering. I appreciated the fatal honesty, but I’m sure that was not her intent.

Sound like you don’t care if you make the sale.

The single most important rule of negotiation is that you must be willing to walk away. Every time I buy a car, I am told that my price is too low and out of the question, until I thank the salesperson for his time and go to leave. Then my price suddenly becomes doable.

The same is true when making a sale. You’ll be amazed at how badly people want to buy from you when they are convinced that you and/or your product are so good that you don’t care if you make the sale. I don’t mean that you should come across as arrogant, just confident. I have potential clients call me with matters that don’t involve a lot of money, so after telling them the best way to proceed, I suggest that they find a less experienced attorney who will charge less. Even though I have just told them there are less expensive attorneys that can handle the job, in their mind I become the only attorney for the job and they happily pay my higher rate.

Show deference to the customer.

I am always amazed by the religious pamphleteers that try to get me to take their materials by saying, "it’ll change your life." I may not want to change my life, and it is presumptuous to assume I do.

A salesperson at the local electronics store was trying to sell me some very high-end speakers, and asked what I was currently using. When I told him, he basically responded that my speakers were crap. This approach is stupid on several levels. First, just on an interpersonal level, why would I want to buy from someone who just told me I made a bad buying decision? Further, and in line with the earlier comment that you don’t want to provide too much information, my speakers sounded great and received good reviews, so with that comment he just informed me that he doesn’t have a trained ear.

Don’t tell your prospect you can improve their life or business, because they will know more about their life or business than you. Tell them what you offer, tell them how it has helped others, and let them connect the dots to their own situation.

How to keep your Godforsaken, life-sucking job

The stress meter is definitely pegging among the working crowd. Being an employment lawyer, I normally gets dozens of calls per week from people who have been fired, but now I’m getting a lot of calls from people who expect to get fired and want to do something proactive. Most are not familiar with the concept of at-will employment, so they want to know how they can document their stellar work performance, thinking they can later use that as evidence that there was no just cause for termination.

As stated here many times, you can be fired for any reason or no reason, so long as the termination does not violate public policy (although some states like New York don't even have that limitation). In a down economy when terminations are commonplace, it becomes even more difficult to prove wrongful termination because the company can easily show you were fired for economic reasons.

So, instead of looking to litigation to save the day, here are some tips to keep the job you have (at least until you can go to work for yourself).

Get noticed as a valuable employee

Now is not the time to be a wallflower. With a go-go economy you can fly under the radar, but when the higher-ups are deciding who to terminate, you don’t want anyone saying, "how about that guy with the office next to the copy room – what does he even do?"

Provide an alternative to termination

Say you’re a 15 year employee with one of the higher salaries at the company due to your seniority. When it comes time to cut payroll, you are a big target, and the company will not be thinking of what is best for you, but rather will simply be looking at an organizational chart and the dollars and cents. Before the knock on your office door comes, be ready with an alternative to termination. For example, you might offer to take a lesser-paying position, or switch from a salary to commissions. The company might be thrilled to have someone with your experience go from regional manager down to store manager, but assumed that would be beneath you. Even if it is beneath you, it is far better to be working while you look for a better job than to be living on unemployment.

Diversify and have an exit strategy.

Smart people diversify their investments, yet they usually depend on a single source for their income. Your income should never be limited to one source. While in college, I got a part-time job as a radio announcer. I then got a job at a second radio station, and worked as a disk jockey at a night club on weekends. When one of the radio stations changed formats and fired all the announcers, it was no problem because I had two other jobs.

Yes, those were part-time college jobs, but trust me the same approach can be applied to your situation. If you are thinking right now, "I don’t even have time for my primary job, how can I add others?", then you are thinking too narrowly. Your backup job should be ready and waiting, but it does not need to be active. By day, you are a mild mannered CPA, but you buy a hot dog cart and three times a year you work the local fairs with your kids to instill the entrepreneurial spirit in them. When your accounting firm goes out of business, you hit the county fair circuit selling your hotdogs full time until you find another accounting gig. Even now, working as a full-time, muckety-muck attorney, I maintain "second jobs." If all my clients disappeared tomorrow, I could live off my writing income and Internet businesses. Having money in savings to weather a termination is a good idea, but it should not be your fallback plan. That plan just leaves you with no savings.