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 understand why breaking the rules is necessary. But in addition, you will find every tool you need to satisfy your customer and beat the competition. But the tools will be of no value unless you have a positive mental attitude as a foundation. 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 least desirable jobs, if any. 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 and 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 visa versa. If fact, if you want, you can try this right now and see that it is true. 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. You will feel better.
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 who assumed a sad face felt sad. Those who 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 used 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 biggest success in life so far? It doesn't matter if it was a really big victory or not. 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 this phenomenon. 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. They are "on a roll." This can have an amazing affect on how you proceed and how you are perceived as you meet potential employers during our campaign.