Before I’d graduated from college at age 20, and even after I’d spent six or so years working my first couple of full-time jobs, I’d held the belief that other people, namely my friends, instructors, and supervisors had my best interests at heart. And why shouldn’t I have held that belief? After all, it’s what I’d been taught to believe and what I’d been told was the truth by most everyone since the day I was born.

Fast-forward seven and a half years, to a point where I’d wasted probably the most productive years of my 20’s working for the same employer, with no promotions to speak of since my first 30 days on the job. At that point, I realized the cold, hard truth about the so-called “real world” that we live in, which is that not only are others nowhere near as concerned about you or me as we are about ourselves, but that they also only care about us to the extent that we can help them succeed, or to the extent that we care about them. Simply put, for the vast majority of us, or even, dare I say, all people, it’s all about (and has always been all about) “What’s in it for me?”—whether we’ll admit this or not...

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