10 Unmeasurable Qualities Of A Human Being

Over the last 15 years I’ve probably hired tens of thousands of people, and I’ve learned that while there are a lot of things you can measure, there are a lot of things you cannot measure without seeing how the person handles what they go through and how they respond to them over time.

 In this video I talk about the following 10 unmeasurable qualities of a human being.

#1: Heartbeat of an Organization

Sometimes you’ll hire somebody and within a month or two or three, they become the heartbeat of your organization.

For example, two or three weeks after Mario started working for me, we had a sales meeting. In the meeting someone made a remark about another one of our sales people in our office. These two sales managers got into it. Mario got up and he said, “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you just don’t talk to a lady like that.” Boom! Immediately we found out a lot about him, two weeks into it. He became the heartbeat. From there on, everybody knew that when this cat was around, people were protected because he protected people. That’s a heartbeat. But you don’t know that right off the bat when you’re working with somebody. You won’t know that part until time goes by and there are situations for them to rise up.

#2: Vision

A lot of people say, “I have a very big vision.” They claim to have a grand vision, but when they get a little bit of success, you realize their vision is a very small vision.

Then there are certain people that may not say much about having a big vision, and the next thing you know, they’re responding and delivering in a way that demonstrates they have a bigger vision than people that have been there for six years. They constantly chase the vision that they have in their lives.

You cannot measure somebody’s vision, by saying, “tell me about your vision.” It takes a long time to know whether or not a person has vision.

#3: Desire

If there was a mechanism that came out that scanned people and said “he has desire at the highest level,” or, “this guy has no desire whatsoever,” it would save thousands, or perhaps even billions of hours for different CEOs and companies because they would know who to work with and who not to work with.

People talk about how bad they want something and then boom, one thing happens and they quit. “Oh, you don’t know what just happened. We had a family crisis.” What’s the crisis? “We had my 7th cousin that just got into an accident.” Family crisis? “Yeah, you don’t understand because I had to go and. . . ”

One time, twice, and every time something happens, they’re gone for a week. This person doesn’t have any desire. They’re just talking a big game. Everything to them is a family crisis. They don’t have desire.

You’ll find out about it when you work with them. And then other times when you work with someone and you’ll say, “This cat’s got a lot of desire.”

#4: Ambition

Listen in here for my thoughts on what ambition looks like.

#5: Long-Term Thinking

Most people are short-term thinkers. If something doesn’t work out for 30, 60 days, they say, “You know, this is not working, I’m going to bail. I’m going to go somewhere else.”

Long-term thinking is someone who says, “I don’t know why, but I get the feeling these guys are going places. I don’t know why, but I see that long-term I can be a leader and I’m going to come out here and be a big part of this organization.”

There is no way in the world you’re going to know if a person has long-term thinking or short-term thinking until you hire the person and start working with them.

#6: Tenacity/Thick Skin

Listen in here for my thoughts on people with tenacity.

#7: Loyalty

It takes time to realize who’s loyal and who’s not. You realize who’s in it just for them and who’s in it for the entire organization. Loyalty to me is a very big thing because it doesn’t take thousands of people to create a major, major movement. It takes a handful of people that are absolutely loyal to you who are ambitious, driven, have desire, are big thinkers, have big vision, and think long-term. They are people that have bought into what you want to do, that are willing to do whatever they can to run through the wall for this cause to become a reality, and for you to build a massive conglomerate for yourself. But it takes finding the right loyal people.

#8: Creativity

Some people claim to be very creative, but when we have innovation meetings together to come up with ideas, all of the ideas they suggest are bland. After one, two, three, four meetings, they haven’t given any ideas. This person is not creative. It takes time to find out if a person is creative or not.

#9: How Competitive They Are

You hear a lot of people who say, “I’m very competitive. I want to move up. I’m very, very competitive. I’m the most competitive person I know.” And then you bring them in and they’re really not that competitive. If they lose, they’re okay with it. They lose twice, they’re okay with it. They don’t have this desire to come in, stay late, show up on the weekend, or take the weekend to study and improve their craft.

Other times you have someone that comes in and is quiet and doesn’t look like a competitor, but they are absolutely competitive. They take the weekend to improve, and they come back sharper in the next meeting. They improve over time. You can’t tell if somebody is competitive or not right off the bat.

#10: Hard Working

I’ve had a lot of people I’ve hired over the years that say, “I’m the hardest working person I know.” And then they can’t wait to go home at 5:00. That’s not the hardest working person you know. There’s a lot more harder working people than you if you can’t wait to go home at 5:00. “But you know, I have to go home. Something came up.” Okay, but then it happens a second time, third time, fourth time.

It’s Friday, they have to leave at 3:00 p.m. and then on Monday they come in and their face is so red because they went golfing the entire time.

With all of these points, the only way you can measure these things is over time.

Pay very close attention to these areas and over time you’ll be able to see whether or not they have these qualities.

This article was originally published on PatrickBetDavid.com.