Ray S. was a young Air Force officer. He completed his service and sought a job as an engineer with an aircraft company. Ray considered his own background. He had a bachelor's degree in engineering from a respectable school. He had four years' experience as an engineer in the Air Force, where he had performed as a project manager and was responsible for the development of aircraft subsystems exceeding million per year. Ray had done very well in directing these government programs and had been commended by his supervisor.
Before beginning his campaign, Ray wrote down everything he had done during this period; after a few days he had several pages of notes. By this time he really knew his strengths. Next, Ray began to think about his goal. He knew he wanted to work for an aircraft company.
Because his background was entirely in project management, and he enjoyed and excelled both at this type of work, Ray decided to pursue it as a career. He began to investigate several aerospace companies. He discovered very quickly that his limited experience made it difficult to move into the kind of job he wanted, given the recessionary climate of the aerospace industry.
Ray did not give up. He learned of a company in a foreign country that was seeking American expertise in building up its aerospace capabilities. The company offered the type of position he sought at a higher salary than he had expected. Ray now had a fully defined job goal. To prepare himself, he studied the company and read up on the country. By the day of the interview Ray was ready. He knew that his campaign would be successful whether this particular company hired him or not. He also knew that he would do well in the interview. He was self- confident and had a positive mental attitude.
It is not remarkable that Ray S. was hired. What is remarkable is that he managed to secure a position at a level higher than 80 percent of the other American engineers who were hired, despite the fact that they had from 2 to 25 years more experience than Ray.
Your Ability to Sell Yourself through Your Attitude
Job hunting is a sales situation. You are the product. Your PE is your customer. Other job hunters seeking the same job are your competition. In this book you will find every tool you need to satisfy your customer and beat the competition. But these tools will be of no value unless you have a positive mental attitude. Have you ever seen a successful salesman with a negative attitude? Of course not! The same is true for the successful job hunter. A positive mental attitude will attract job offers. A negative mental attitude expressing negative feelings or telling hard-luck stories to a PE will get you only the most undesirable job situations. Like the successful salesman, you should always fill your mind with positive thoughts. A positive mental attitude is the key to selling yourself successfully to a PE.
Maintaining a Positive Outlook
Psychologists tell us that you cannot be in a happy mood and an unhappy mood at the same time. If you think about this, it makes sense. You really can't act sad when you feel happy and vice versa. So if you want to be happy, even in the face of misery about you, it is within your own power.
For most people, just changing their posture and facial expression can have a strong therapeutic effect. Try this. If you are feeling "down" right now, sit or stand up straight, hold your head high, with your shoulders back. Now put a smile on your face. Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at the University of California found that moods could be changed by simply assuming a happy face or a sad face. Students that assumed a sad face felt sad. Those that put on a happy face felt happy. ?
To top things off, try repeating this litany at the same time: "I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel terrific!" Keep saying this loudly and with enthusiasm until you really "feel it." W. Clements Stone of Chicago developed this positive affirmation. He claimed it helped him maintain a positive mood under adversity. Friends and employees said Stone was a "reverse paranoid." According to Stone, others were constantly plotting to do good things for him. Maybe he was correct. Though born poor, he became a millionaire many times over.
Here's another little experiment you can try right now. Try to feel really bad when you are in the "happy posture" with a big smile. If you have nothing to smile about right now, think of when you did. What has been your greatest success in life? Think how you felt when you achieved that success or received some very good news. Did it make you happy? You probably had a very big smile. Assume the same posture, facial expressions, and feelings you had when you were happy and successful in the past. Now maintaining the facial expressions, and posture of happiness, try to get depressed. Unless you change your posture, expressions, and thoughts, it just isn't possible.
You may be interested to know that nature may have a sound explanation for these phenomena. When we smile or frown, muscles tighten to compress small blood vessels from the carotid artery. This regulates the volume of blood supplied to the brain. So key regions of the brain get more or less blood and more or less of the mood-altering chemicals in the blood. According to psychologist R.B. Zajonc at the University of Michigan, nature may have intended that people control their emotions in this way.
This simple mood control exercise has considerable power. How do you feel when you are in a happy mood? Most people feel "charged up." They feel unbeatable. They feel that all is "right with the world." They feel they can't do anything wrong. This can have an amazing affect on how you proceed and how you are perceived as you meet potential employers during your campaign.
Solving Problems That Occur During Your Job Hunt
Here's another psychological technique that will help you to through your ability to solve problems as they occur. It is a form of self-hypnosis and was developed by researchers at Duke University. First, you select the major problem bothering you. Next, you go off by yourself where it is quiet. Sit down and allow yourself to relax, with your eyes closed. Most people find they can get in such a relaxed state by slowly imagining a numbness spreading over their bodies beginning with their toes, and not even excluding their eyelids. While in this relaxed state, you simply describe the problem to yourself in your mind and tell your subconscious mind that you want the problem solved. You then get up and go about your business. Not infrequently, the results are almost immediate and the solution will come to you when you least expect it.
Sometimes the problem is solved a little later with the solution appearing in different or unexpected ways. Repeat the procedure periodically until the problem is solved to your satisfaction.
I know this sounds too good and too simple to be true. But it has been tested and found to work. During experiments testing this technique, it was tried by 155 college students on a wide variety of problems. 86% of the students reported complete or partial success at helping or preventing depression. 94.9% reported complete or partial success at becoming wide awake when sleepy. 97.2% reported complete or partial success at overcoming fatigue. 91.9% reported complete or partial success at curing procrastination. 98.7% reported complete or partial success at improving their social relations. Clients in my consulting practice report similar success with a wide variety of business and personal problems.
