One of my sayings is, “In the casino business, you can always find someone that does not like you.” For me personally, the guy that wanted me to invest in his cooking show. Sorry, not my thing! The guy that wanted an introduction to Tony Hsieh at Zappos. Sorry, you need a value proposition! And several of the candidates I would not represent. “Mark says he is a Christian, but he would not help me.” I kid you not.  Heard that multiple times.  They don’t understand that I can’t possibly represent every candidate that approaches me.  And since my reputation is on the line every time I submit a resume, I can only represent executives that I know personally.

Andy Choy of Melco once told me a casino executive was pity mouthing me all over Las Vegas. My response was, “Not sure that says anything about me; sure says a lot about him.” From a career perspective, do your best not to burn your bridges. As Walt Disney said, “It’s a small, small world.” When I did searches for GMs at Ameristar years ago, they would circulate candidate resumes to all 12 GMs. If any of the 12 made a negative comment, the candidate was OUT.

Although I’m a big believer in referrals and references, I always temper that with “consider the source.” If I discounted every candidate that had a personality conflict somewhere in their career…there would be no candidates left. Lesson learned? Not everyone wants to be your friend. Do your best to play well with others and follow the Golden Rule.  Mother Teresa said it best, “For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”