I caught Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness yesterday and came away highly affected. The movie shows how strong will and determination can change a person’s life. After reflecting on the movie on the ride back home, I decided to come up with 10 lessons that I had learnt from the movie.

Where The Title Comes From
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. These three aspects are listed among the “unalienable rights” of man.

Movie Summary
Based on true events, The Pursuit of Happyness (the incorrect spelling is explained in the film) follows Chris Gardner (Smith) as he struggles to achieve the American dream. Chris has everything going against him. His wife (Thandie Newton) left him and he’s raising his 5-year-old son alone, without any real income. Determined to provide for his son Christopher (Jaden Smith) no matter what, Chris enters an unpaid internship program at a brokerage firm in hopes of landing the one paid position available at the end of the training program.
Sleeping in bathrooms, homeless shelters, and shabby hotels when he’s got the money to afford a room, Chris never gives up on the idea he can land a job and provide his son with a better life. Will Chris be able to grab the brass ring? Will his son be raised in an environment of love? If you watched the 20/20 special on the real Gardner, you know exactly how this story turns out.

10 Lessons From The Pursuit Of Happyness

1. Necessity is the mother of invention
People like to be in their comfort zone. We tend to ignore problems until they become too painful to do so. That is why inventions seem so hard to come by. It is also the reason why insurance and saving plans are so hard to sell. People just prefer to ignore them at their own peril. How do we promote invention? You can start on a personal level by asking yourself the following questions: “Why is it this way? How can I make it better? What do I need? Who do I benefit” They are basic questions that we rarely ask ourselves.

2. Don’t do a job that does not directly link reward to results
In the movie, we see Will Smith juggle a stock broking job and a medical equipment sales job together. He worked on the sales on the weekend and broking on weekdays. If the performance of your job has no strong direct link to the payout, think of ways to improve and get another second income stream. Jobs that pay you based on time as just taking away the most valuable resource of your life from you. Time is the only limited resource in the world. You cannot make time and worse still, you have no idea of how much you have left. So invest your time wisely.

3. You are who you mix with
There are studies which determined that your income is the approximate weighted average of all your friends( I can’t find the link now but I am sure it exists). Stick with the right people and you will rise with the tide. Stick with the wrong group and you will go under. Will Smith had a big break where he got into the exclusive box stand. There he got to know so many contacts that were much valuable than those that could be found on his cold calling list. The fact that he came with a CEO of a large pension fund also help gained him creditability. The internet age has made it very easy to network. Try the business networking portal LinkedIn now. You can also add me to your network.

4. 1 decision can make your life difficult or very good
Some decisions, like Will’s decision to invest in the medical scanner, can make life more difficult than necessary. His decision to jump into stock broking however made his life much better. The point is not to avoid making big decisions in fear of making your life extremely bad, but to make sure that you always have a lifeline. Dumping your savings in something you do not understand is hardly a smart decision.

5. Determination, Motivation and Ambition are the same things
They make you take action. Action is the part separating thinker, dreamers from the successful. Set goals and work for them. If you are working, you should aim for your next promotion in the next X years. If you are doing sales, apply will’s mantra: “X calls=X meetings=X interested prospects= X closing=X money” Ask yourself: what is the X that you are aiming for?

6. You need a supportive partner
I thought it really sucked to have his wife walk out on him. I am generalizing here but I think the girls I know generally have less determination than guys. They are just not that interested in achieving goals. So if you see one who will stick by you through thick and thin, make sure the glue is always strong.

7. Luck evens out in the long term
Sure. In the movie, Will seem to always have bad luck everyday. But luck is statistically proven to be non existent. Flip a coin many times and you get even results. Work on your cold calling and you will get that X numbers of meetings. As long as in the short term you survive, there is nothing to blame on luck.

8. Money != Happiness
With an income more than 20K, your happiness level does not increase with further increases in income. In this study, it is shown that everyone needs a decent standard of living. But once you attain that, happiness is less definable because it varies from everyone. Varied experiences and being in control of your life generally bring experiences. See Maslow hierarchy of needs if you need to know basic stuff have to be fulfilled first. For me, happiness means being in control of my life, having financial security and doing hard and meaningful work.

9. Happiness is relative
They say a happy man is one whom earns $100 more than his wife’s sister’s husband. Less comparison of status with other people make you content. Or you could simply downgrade your lifestyle.

10. It is hard to climb out of poverty. Social mobility is dropping
In the Documentary 30 Days, they did an experiment where a couple worked on minimum wage for 30 days. Not only did they have no savings at the end of 30 days, they were in the red. It is not surprising that people cannot climb out of poverty. No one would be willing to hire anyone without a home address. You basically drop out of the system and no work=no money= no home. It’s just a vicious cycle.

You might also be interested in:
Top 10 Money Tips For Almost Everyone!

HoHoHo. This article exposes some commonly used promotion and sales tactics that are sure to ruffle your feathers. Sales is a pretty hard job and I guess the salesperson whom doesn’t step down a level from his moral high ground will be unlikely to get a fat paycheck. The problem is hard sales is necessary is many industries. A lot of people are not sure of what they really want to buy. If they are, they would be purchasing the product from an online store instead of going into a store to be pressured. So when you are unsure of what you want, it becomes very hard for a company to sell you anything. Thus a salesperson’s job is to convert that uncertainty to “Yes, I will pay my hard earned cash for that”. Given that most consumer products compete on price and sales, it is not hard to see when salespersons are so competitive and push us so hard.

Copyright : TodaysTen.com

32 Reasons Why Geeks are Severely Underpaid by Calum Coburn
The full article has 32 points and 5 sections. For your full benefit, I slim down the article to the Top Ten most applicable rules. These rules are not slanted to just IT personnel. They are rules that everyone should use when they are job hunting.

TodaysTen: IF YOU ONLY HAVE TIME FOR ONE:
Centuries of gathering around the night fire listening to stories by village elders had molded our brains. Humans take in and remember facts better and in more emotion if they are linked. What better way to link facts and emotions than into a story? You should at least have a story that was rehearsed. A story can be used many times and improved. Interviews are boring events for the interviewer. Make a lasting impression with a humorous story and you will score a deep impression.

21. Tell them a Story…or 3. Most IT pros know their facts. This isn’t enough. You need to be able to make your facts come alive and dance in the form of a convincing story. They’ve going to buy into YOU, so you need to be memorable and persuasive. One of the best ways to make a great impression is to rehearse your stories. Which stories? Your successful war stories. You know, the Mission Impossible projects you pulled through against all odds. Get skilled at painting scenarios vividly, gather the essential facts on just how challenging it was, and how much money you saved your company. You need to sing your own praises. Yes, it’s not as romantic as someone else singing them for you. Unless you can wheel your ex-boss into the interview room, you need blow your own trumpet. Modesty doesn’t put much money into your bank account. So investing in your storytelling skills is likely to have a higher rate of return than another technical or degree qualification. Write your stories out and take them to a friend in the Marketing Department for sharpening (Marketing folk can be VERY useful to have as friends when it comes to salary negotiation time).

The Top Ten Points

1. Negotiate. Yes, just by choosing to negotiate, you’ll be raising yourself above most of your competition. How? A Society for Human Resource Management survey found that 8 out of 10 recruiters were willing to negotiate salary and benefits with job applicants. Yet only 33% of applicants surveyed said they felt comfortable negotiating. In our experience, the remaining 2 out of 10 who weren’t prepared to negotiate with their recruits are either unattractive to work for, had unwisely started with their best offer, or will be forced to revise their thinking when they realize their true choice.

4. Get all offers in writing. You don’t want to commit yourself or turn down other positions without first knowing exactly what is being offered. So don’t make a decision before it’s in writing. Remember that just because it’s in writing, doesn’t mean it’s carved in stone. An offer in writing is a starting point for negotiation. Compare their written offer with your meeting notes (you are taking detailed notes at the end of each meeting, aren’t you?).

6. Set your sights high. Are you aspiring high enough? Most geeks don’t ask for enough, this is a sad fact of today’s marketplace. Agencies and employers typically make an offer, waiting for the IT professional to argue for higher salary, only to be surprised with a meek acceptance. This is usually the symptom of low aspirations. So raise your own price and you’re guaranteed to achieve a better result. At first reading, this may sound like a contradiction, we know. Think about this for a moment: one of the most significant ways in which employers judge your ability is through your confidence. If an employer is presented with 3 candidates with roughly similar CV’s, and 1 says that he’s worth more, who are they going to trust the high risk all important project responsibilities with? A higher aspiration communicates confidence, and confidence inspires confidence and with it higher salaries.

7. Ask for More. Following on from 6 above, there’s another strange reason why it’s in your interest to ask for more. Executives hate to be wrong. So when your boss has made a decision to take you on, they are making a personal bet on your potential. If you perform well, you make them look good to their peers. If you don’t perform, they look bad. Everyone wants to back a winner, the most obvious way to measure the weight of their bet on your potential is the figure they put on your head. So it’s in their interest to promote those that they reward the highest - as this proves them right. Are you following? This means that the more you get paid, the greater your chances of a promotion - and thus continues your upward spiral. It’s not necessarily fair, but a subtle human principle of psychology. So either make this one count in your favour, or risk someone else in your organisation leapfrog your future progression.

9. Get on the inside track. Get to know people in your target organisation, or better yet - in your target department. Inside information can be the gold dust you need to strike gold. Knowing the right people, winning their trust and asking the right questions can be the key you need to gain the upper hand. This takes time, so start asking your friends who they know.

10. Do your homework. Visit their website - read it, get to know all you can about their industry - past and present. Even if your role is a supporting type that’s safely tucked away from the coal face of the changing harsh market, every employer wants staff who are interested in making a difference. Find areas that you’re passionate about, remember these just before your interview to fuel your passion for getting this role. This isn’t easy to do when you have many interviews to attend, so be selective about the roles you want to take seriously enough to research. It helps to stick to one industry, especially if you’re already familiar with the industry. As always, write your questions down and ask your interviewer or friends who have the inside track. Use theh web and other resources to your advantage to know the real worth of your skills and role.

16. Do not fill in salary boxes. Seen the forms that ask you for your last positions’ salary or contract rate? Leave it blank. If they ask for your salary expectation, tell them that you’re ‘open’ or are ‘negotiable’. Why? Once you state a salary, this rate will form the ceiling beneath which the negotiation game will be played. Similarly, if you give a salary range, you can guess which end of your range you’ll be anchored to.

21. Tell them a Story…or 3. Most IT pros know their facts. This isn’t enough. You need to be able to make your facts come alive and dance in the form of a convincing story. They’ve going to buy into YOU, so you need to be memorable and persuasive. One of the best ways to make a great impression is to rehearse your stories. Which stories? Your successful war stories. You know, the Mission Impossible projects you pulled through against all odds. Get skilled at painting scenarios vividly, gather the essential facts on just how challenging it was, and how much money you saved your company. You need to sing your own praises. Yes, it’s not as romantic as someone else singing them for you. Unless you can wheel your ex-boss into the interview room, you need blow your own trumpet. Modesty doesn’t put much money into your bank account. So investing in your storytelling skills is likely to have a higher rate of return than another technical or degree qualification. Write your stories out and take them to a friend in the Marketing Department for sharpening (Marketing folk can be VERY useful to have as friends when it comes to salary negotiation time).

26. Sell your Value. Sell your value, and make your value visible. Stress what you have to offer the employer. Explain why you are the person for their job. Explain why you deserve a good raise or bonus by pointing out your accomplishments. State your sources from your prior research to underpin your facts. The interview chair is not time to become shy or timid.

29. Many Goals to Score. Flesh out your goals and interests before going into every negotiation, in as much detail as possible. Make our Salary Negotiation Checklist your own by adding in extra columns. The more distinctions you make, the more material you have with which to negotiate. If you walk into a negotiation with only 1 goal, you risk being stuck in a deadlock. With 2 goals, you risk a to-and-fro dilemma. With 3 or more goals and issues your options begin to open up, and with some creative juices you can build the perfect job offer. So divide your goals and negotiation issues into sub goals and sub issues.

If you still need help in persuasion skills, try Top Ten Sales Killers

Sales skills can be used in multiple situations that you find yourselves in. Sales is basically convincing people to see and accept your view point. This skill is a tremendous benefit to anyone, not just salesmen. Of course all of us had our share of pushy and irritating sales people. Good sales people are like stealth jets; they glide in, take their aim and achieve both of your and theirs’ target.

I took a job as a computer salesman during my vacation. Though real life experience helps, I strongly suggest that you at the very least read a book on sales before jumping in for the experience. With a guide, you can at least see what you should and should not be doing. One book that I really like because it can really change your mindset to a sales superstart is 
Ultimate Selling Power: How to Create and Enjoy a Multi-Million Dollar Sales Career

For those who do not have time to read a book, you can try this short list instead.

Top 10 Sales Killers By Tom Hopkins
http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/closingthesale/article159546.html

TodaysTen: IF YOU ONLY HAVE TIME FOR ONE

“Sales Killer #3: Your vocabulary. Words create pictures in our minds. Certain words that are inherent to selling turn people off. For example, I caution people in business to avoid using the word “contract” when handling the details of a large-ticket sale. We all know that contracts are legally binding documents and require legal efforts to get out of. If appropriate, call your contract an “agreement,” “form” or “paperwork.” The mental image is less threatening. Think about the words you use and replace any negative word-picture images with gentler, more positive ones.”

This was something I really learnt. There are professionals called wordsmiths. What they excel at is to change the structure of conversations and use gentler vocabulary so that an argument is more acceptable. Ever wondered why some people are naturally abrasive? Maybe it is because of their choice of words. If they had a wordsmith friend, they might be able to irritate less people.