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How do you answer questions? Are you open or defensive? Do you question why the question was asked? Or do you refuse to answer to prove your point? Does your jaw drop? How about your body language? Do you say and convey the same messages? Or do you say yes with words, but no with actions?

Are your ups and downs determined by events? Do you really, deep down, recognize your amazing, unique qualities? Can anyone or anything take that knowledge away?

Your answers will determine how fast and how often you get interviews. Only those answers.

If you see some bad habits there, change them. They’re just habits—things we do over and over without thinking. You think, you stop, you substitute. It works.

Ask someone you trust and see whether she agrees.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Everyone rolls his eyes. Everyone complains. Everyone argues. Just be conscious of it. That will do wonders. (It probably already has by just reading this.)

Read it every day for a week or so. Repetition got you every negative habit, and repetition will replace every one.

If you are to succeed, really succeed—with peace of mind deep in your soul—please know one thing and one thing only:

People don’t change.

Not you, not your spouse, not your kids. Not the people on a plastic surgeon’s table or a psychotherapist’s couch.

Don’t spend another nanosecond trying to change yourself or them. It just frustrates you, and it annoys them. Period.

You don’t get off that easy, though. Now it’s time to substitute that changing habit with the habit of growing.

You either grow up or you grow down. You either blossom or you wither and die. There’s really nothing in between, is there? If you’ve ever attended a class reunion, you should need no further convincing. They’re either vertically the same, or they’re horizontal.

Isn’t what we think is change really growth?

Now we turn to improving your persona. We do that by something called a sense of humor. That’s right—having a sense that things just happen and taking them humorously.

Let’s look at something like being late. All mature adults try to be early or on time. You’ve instantly interviewed with a terrific offeror who has invited you back for a third time. You made a friend at the business, and know it’s time for him to extend an offer for a dream job. You were to be there at 9 A.M.

Your daughter had a math homework assignment that was due today. You discovered it in her backpack an hour before she was leaving for school. She didn’t do it and decided this was the morning she no longer needed to know math. By the time she figured out a few of the answers, you were already running late. Deep breath here.

It would be natural—appropriate and even what you want at some level (to punish her)—for you to show up late profusely apologizing, and at best looking weak.

But you’re a member of the I.I. Society. We know what a job is (Do 1). Most important, we know how to get interviews today, tomorrow, always. We know this is a human experience that any parent in the civilized world encounters.

Now exhale. Fine.

Before anything else, you tell your teenage daughter to get her act together. You’ve got an important call to make. She complies because you have the car keys.

You call the office, and the receptionist answers. Smiling and using your most professional voice, you say, “Hi, Karen! This is Joan. I have an appointment with Andy at 9 A.M. Will you let him know that I’m on my way. I’ve been detained for a little while.”

She says, “I think I saw Andy in the back. Would you like to tell him yourself?”

You reply, “No. That will just take longer. I’m on my way.”

What did you do differently from every other sniffling, whining, weak jobseeking beggar? You owned the dialogue.

People are late. The world isn’t going to wobble on its axis. You weren’t there at all yesterday. The biz survived. And most important, Andy will only care if you do.

Will you apologize for being