VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
If you only had one question what would be the most important question you could ever ask anybody
Over all my years of research I have come up with what I think is the most important question you ever ask anybody.
And the question is, “Tell me about the very first job you ever had you got paid for.”
It's not about the last job
what most of us ask people is tell us about the last job
number one everybody has a canned answer for their last job
the most important question is
tell me about the first job you ever had you got paid for because you're going to watch the movie from the beginning to the end not from the end to the beginning
let me give you a quick example
working with a restaurant group talking to their group volunteer one of their district managers comes up and I said to him would you mind telling the group about the very first job you've her head you got paid for and he said my first job I was 14 years old I got a job washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant
he wasn't Chinese
I said how did you get a job washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant
he said they had a sign in the window and I needed a job and I walked in
I said well tell me about the job
he said well I work every day after school and all day Saturdays and Sundays
I said did you like it
no I hated it
I said what were the three most important things you learned
and he said number one I learned wet rice is heavy
he's got a sense of humor
number two I learned to work hard and number three I learned to be dependable and number four you do whatever you have to do
I said well what do you mean
he said as I told you I hated this job but I did it anyway until I was 16 and I could get a real job
I said well why did you do it
he said because my dad died I had a younger brother and a younger sister and there was no insurance and I had to help mom paid the bills you do whatever you have to do when you need to do it
today he's 27 years old he's not a manager in a restaurant he's a district manager he has nine restaurants under him because he's still doing whatever he has to do to get the job done
it's not about the first last job it's all about the first job
