Why the Quality of People Seems to Be Diminishing

I find this fascinating, even incredulous. I'm not referring to you in what I'm about to share (I hope!). I believe people have become inattentive, ambivalent, and perhaps outright lazy, and it's troubling. Let me provide some context: The other day, I sent an email trying to recruit a gifted JV dealmaker for a full-time, salaried position to set up partnering promotional deals for my Breakthroughs at the Beach program. In that email, I explicitly (not implicitly) stated that: - I only wanted applicants from North America. - The position is full time with a salary. - And most importantly… The applicants should send the reasons why they feel qualified, ALONG WITH their resume or bio. Just to be clear… The call to action in that email was to send THE reasons why you felt qualified along with your resume or bio. You probably know where I’m taking this because of the tonality in the VOICE I’m using here. Unfortunately, it appears that my communication wasn't clear enough, as my assistant informed me that we received dozens of emails, but only a few out of almost three dozen included the reasons why they were a good fit or their resume/bio. By the way we also got respondents asking if I’d accept someone from another continent. Oh and one said what are the hours is it part time? Why am I taking my time sharing this all too true experience? I'm sharing this experience not to vent negativity, it really isn’t, but because I offered the job to our database as a courtesy before posting it on regular job sites. I'm confident that people genuinely interested in the job will read the entire ad and reply appropriately to prove their reliability, attentiveness to detail, and ability to follow complete directions. I’ll find a superstar outside of my database. But I wanted to do what I’m calling a superficiality intervention—here, today. My point: don’t let yourself skim through key impression points in your life. I urge any and all of you who may have unknowingly become superficial or even a bit cavalier in reading and comprehending written communication to perform a private reality check on yourself. For example, I'm amazed at how seemingly ethical people, who purport to have a high degree of integrity and moral compass, can book a call with our sales executive, ask him to commit his precious time / opportunity cost (allocating an hour for them)— only to have them not show up and then totally ghost my sales exec when he responsibly tries to follow up. I truly hope I'm not describing you and your actions. Why? This kind of conduct erodes your personal integrity at an almost exponentially negative rate. It compromises who you are as a trustworthy, responsible, and respectful human being. Even worse, there are those who sign up for webinars and then don't bother to attend. They may think it doesn't matter or that the webinar wouldn't have been valuable anyway, but in reality, they're stealing and destroying another dimension of their integrity. Honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity are attributes more prized today than at any other time in our history, but respect for other people's time and relevance seems to have been largely abandoned, and it's quite shameful. There's a famous quote that says, "Showing up is half the battle," but unfortunately, most people both literally, figuratively, morally — and ethically simply don’t show up. I find myself incredulous and dumbfounded by this behavior. People book calls without any idea of what it's about or have absolutely no intention of showing up. OR, they skim lightly over a comprehensively written email that clearly and unheedingly states that they need to tell me why they are qualified and include a resume. I ask this rhetorically, not seeking a response: Why do you think so many people have become so lazily and unethically superficial? Please take a moment to reflect deeply on this question for yourself. That's it. Jay PS - This situation reminds me of a profound admonishment from one of my mentors years ago: You can lose all your money, and if you keep your integrity, someone will always back you. However, if you sell out your integrity to keep all your money, you'll never get your integrity back! [Unsubscribe]( The Abraham Group 24050 Madison St., #214 Torrance, California 90505 United States