Language of the Poor (LOP) re: jobs
It dismays me when I hear LOP around jobs and opportunities. Let's shift that mindset right now with my framework!
“I can’t find any jobs.”
“It’s been months and still no job offers.”
“You have to know someone to get a job in that field.”
“I don’t have the connections so it’s game over for me.”
“Life is unfair. I’ll never get a decent paying job. The system is broken and is against my {gender/race/age/whatever}.”
I have heard these phrases since as early as I can remember needing money (aka teens).
Every time I hear this type of LOP (language of the poor), it makes me somewhat angry and annoyed.
In a way, it’s incredibly arrogant to choose unemployment over working shitty jobs.
Contrary to that thought, I’ve never been above any dollar. I’ll gladly work ANY shitty job and BE GRATEFUL for the opportunity.
I’d scrounge, beg, borrow, claw at any opportunity to earn even $5-$10. Nothing was beneath me because I started off right down at the bottom, as a waitress since I was 14.
We didn’t grow up rich so I never had those delusions of grandeur of being above dirty work.
Cleaning toilets, other peoples’ puke, getting $2 tips for a table of 25 people, fighting off drunkards and sleazeballs, and eventually dealing with a drug raid… yes, that was a typical Tuesday.
During college, I ran a eBay store bootstrapped off of credit card debt and snowballing (selling one thing, rolling profits into the next thing, etc.). I worked as a bartender. I put out flyers manually and taught Chinese.
I even tried to set up a placemat advertising business by signing up restaurants and trying to drum up advertisers.
The idea that you need to rely on a minimum wage job to live off of never occurred to me because I saw it as a complete waste of time. You could work it perfectly and still get paid a pittance.
Why work at McDonald’s or Walmart for $8-12 on the books when the local Chinese restaurant down the street is paying $20-35 cash for waitresses?
The idea that “there are no jobs available” when every restaurant and bar has a “help needed” sign out is a clear sign that somebody is wrong.
So success in jobs really comes down to these two things:
Willingness to be humble at the feet of money
Ability to parlay from one job to another, higher and higher up the food chain
This is key.
You have to be willing to work and not above anything. This leads you to have opportunities to try new things and learn on every job you take.
Bartending and waitressing taught me people skills, objection handling skills, client selection skills (who is going to skip their check I had to make those calls)
Then you take the experiences you have and pivot HIGHER and HIGHER.
Unlike some customers who’d come to my bar table and sit there decade after decade as a waitress at the local diner or a hair cutter at some salon down the street, the goal was to GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE.
I don’t want to be a small-town bartender for the rest of my life.
So save up, work every single minute of the day you have to try new things, and interview for jobs that will give you a chance.
That chance came for me when I was 22, already a year out of college still working in hospitality.
Here’s me after the interview which changed my entire life’s trajectory.
I sold my heart out on why I was ready for a sales job as a recruitment consultant in Manhattan for $35k base salary (yes, even in 2011 that was a terribly low amount of money lol).
I took what little money I had and was able to put down a deposit on shared apartment where I rented deep into Brooklyn Chinatown with two random dudes off Craigslist far from my office in Rockefeller Center.
Bravely, I ventured forth and the rest is history as I became a global top rookie then top-biller, earning over $215k in my 3rd full year in sales before I continued to pivot into real estate investing.
The point here I want to share is this:
The first step to success in jobs is to fight EVERY semblance of Language of The Poor (LOP).
Eliminate that verbiage in your job search process.
Open your mind.
Envision what is possible.
Be the first in your family to do it.
There were 0 Chinese restaurant takeout kids that made it as a top headhunter that I knew of. So I became the first.
You don’t need connections.
You don’t have to be a nepo baby (in fact many nepos are talentless).
You don’t have to have mommy and daddy offsetting your Manhattan highrise.
You make it work in the way you can in the realm of your possibility and GO ALL IN.
Onwards and forwards, my friends,
<3 Dandan