Leader Rising: Recent Episodes
Paul Karvanis
We help hyper-busy professionals who’ve had work take over their lives and who are ready to live a life that they look forward to waking up to every day. Come join us if you’re ready to get over your inertia, fear, and uncertainty, to create the life you’ve always wanted, and to stop wondering what it is you’ll be when you grow up.
Last week, my client achieved enlightenment.
Well — a moment of it, at least.
When he told me about it, I felt a shadow of the peace he must have felt — it was glorious.
He’d been walking the dog after work on a trail. His family was at home, life buzzing along in the background. And suddenly, it hit him:
“There’s ALWAYS something to worry about.
And right now, I don’t need to worry about any of it.”
And just like that — he stopped worrying.
A deep peace came over him. The stress and tension melted. The worries were reserved for later, when they’d actually need to be worried about.
And in that moment, he felt so alive. 🧡💙
He was living.
- Not worrying about the future.
- Not ruminating on the past.
- Just here. Now. He felt love for the beauty of life — and for himself.
Many of us understand this idea intellectually. But few of us feel it.
There’s an old Zen riddle:
A man is walking in the woods carrying water when he achieves enlightenment. What happens next?
He keeps walking in the woods, carrying water.
In these emails, I mostly talk about practical things — how to be more productive, reduce anxiety, build a career, strengthen relationships. And I love that work.
And I love the deep work.
My client may never say he “achieved enlightenment” — there’s a certain hubris to the claim. But I’ll say it for him: he’s showing up differently. He’s more alive.
This work can change everything, sometimes without changing anything. Sometimes, that's exactly what we need.
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From my morning pages this week, an unexpected typo sparked something:
"...
I feel better now that I said my peace.
That typo was not on purpose. But how right is it? I said my peace. I will claim it.It's not a license to spew our 'truth' over everyone, but sometimes, especially with a loved one, you can't live a lie. The key is first to pause and see what's your stuff, and what's theirs. Do you need them to react a certain way or see you a certain way? That might be YOUR shit.
Are you just holding a healthy aligned boundary? That might be a truth.
BUT, you also don't get to control their response. And if there are certain responses you're not okay with, then maybe THAT'S the conversation.
... in my dream last night I got the clear direction that you're truth will set you free."
Be your truth. Say your peace.
If we all said our piece all the time, it would undermine our relationships. We all have our shit. And one of the kindest things you can do for someone you love is to handle yours without saddling them with it.
- When you're saying your piece, you're probably just saddling them with your shit.
- When you're saying your peace, you're living your truth and helping them see their own shit.
The hard part is figuring out whether it's your piece or your peace. In that respect, putting a little space in between the incident and the interaction can help it trend towards peace rather than piece.
Paul
PS. The final thing I wanted to note was the (also accidental 😬😁) typo in the last line. "You're truth will set you free." When you are your truth, you're free. Be your truth — not your shit. You got this! 😊
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A few days ago, while doing my morning pages and organizing logistics and 'todo's, this thought dropped in:
"I could let go of 90% of it, and still have enough to be happy. What does that say about the 90%?
Nothing.
What does matter? The 10%, obviously. But also, that we're living. And sometimes (most of the time) striving for a goal helps us feel engaged, satisfied, and most importantly, alive."
I think the key part is the 'nothing'. It says NOTHING about the 90%. Neither good nor bad. Just because I could be happy with 10% doesn't mean I shouldn't work at the 90%, because striving can help us feel alive — and don't most of us want to feel alive?
The problem is that I invest a lot of my identity in the 90%. I tell myself something's wrong with me if it doesn't work out. The next thought in the journal had something to say about that:
The key is: what is at stake? When you already have enough then nothing is riding on it. When you don't have enough, then it's maybe your identity and worth that's at stake. Hell, I can make it about my worth even if I'm only trying to shave a few mins off my 5km race time.
So how do we nail the how? Lean into gratitude for all we have already. Then you realize you've always had enough and always will have enough. We just do it for FUN and that is reason enough.
Because if you're doing it all for fun anyway, then you've already won. This reflects a deeper truth — a throughline through in many of my recent emails:
- You don't need to change anything on the outside to feel better inside.
I've got this. You've got this. We've got this. 🧡💙
Love you.
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The thing you’ve been avoiding? It probably is an issue.
And the thing you’ve been pouring energy into? There’s a good chance it isn’t the real problem.
This happens all the time. We keep ourselves busy to feel productive, while avoiding the uncomfortable work that would actually move the needle.
How can you tell the difference? 🤔
One word: feedback.
Life is giving you feedback constantly—through results, conversations, friction points. Sometimes it’s as clear as a boss or colleague saying, “I need you to start doing X.” Sometimes it’s more subtle. Maybe it’s an email you sent that went unanswered. Or a project that keeps getting delayed. Or a client who’s suddenly less responsive.
The trick is staying open enough to recognize it.
One partner made this point perfectly in an interview for the Successful Junior Lawyer Project:
“When I first started getting feedback, I ignored it. I thought I knew better. I thought the people giving it didn’t really understand. But eventually, I had to admit things weren’t working. So I tried listening. I figured, worst case, I could always go back. But once I actually acted on the feedback, things started to improve. Now I see it as one of the most important parts of success—not just getting the right feedback, but giving it to others, too.”
So: what feedback have you been resisting? What signal is life sending you that you haven’t been ready to hear—until now?
I believe in you. 😊
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You ever get stuck in the spin cycle? Overthinking an issue well past the point of usefulness—without ever actually taking action?
That’s the overthinker’s curse.
We forget that deferring a choice—or worse, refusing to make one—is still a choice. And every choice has consequences.
Which ones do we defer most? Often, the ones that make us feel something: fear, anxiety, exposure.
And how do we try to handle those issues? By thinking our way through them.
Wait.🤔
See the trap?
We’re trying to solve a feeling problem with thinking.
Sometimes it works. But often, it’s like trying to quench thirst by eating cucumbers. Sure, you’ll get a little hydration—but a glass of water would be better.
This was me at the start of Leader Rising. I’d agonize over blog posts for weeks, tweaking and tinkering. Then I’d finally hit “publish”… and feel crushed when they didn’t go viral or land a client.
I was chasing home runs.
Tinkering isn’t bad. Mastery matters. But ask yourself: are you refining because it sharpens your craft—or because you’re avoiding the discomfort of being seen?
If it’s comfort you’re chasing, name it. No shame. But if it’s progress you’re after, shipping your work—imperfectly—is often the better bet.
I’ve come to realize: there are no home runs. Just bunts.
The good news? If you keep bunting, you can still make it around the bases.
👉 Feel the fear.
And bunt anyway.
And remember — we're cheering you on.
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Continuing the new feature Notes From The Heart (wisdom for me, not from me), here's what showed up in my morning pages this week:
Memento mori.
Remember death.
One day I will die. I will stop existing as a distinct person on the planet (barring the legal fiction of person as my affairs are wrapped up) and instead will exist as a memory in people's heads and hearts. Hopefully for good and uplifting reasons.
It seems to me then, that the only questions that matter are:
What do I want to leave behind? ... and, of course,
How do I want to live before I go?
What's the point of stressing? Do or do not do. That's it. Some leave plenty. And some leave a gentle breeze, the world barely disturbed by their passing. Me? I will leave something. I already have. A book. Little humans. People carrying me in their hearts...
And...?
The best is yet to come ...
Wait.
Is there a better/best? That's just a value judgment ... driven largely by the values instilled from my past. So, what if there was just kind and unkind? and everything else really is ... subjective?
So there is no "best" yet to come, because there is no best. Our past is random. Little things that add up over time. What if Andrew had picked on someone else that fateful day in grade 6? Or what if someone had stood up for me? I think my whole life would be different.
So when I chase some result because I think it's better, perhaps I would be better served by remembering that one day I will die, and that there is no better.
We all only ever have one question to deal with:
- In each moment, how do we want to spend our wild and beautiful life?
What if, instead of chasing better, the secret to happiness is remembering that the good old days are right now?
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It’s been a little while since I last posted. That wasn’t the plan — but I’ve promised myself (and you) that I won’t post unless I have something worth sharing. No fluff, no filler.
Lately, though, it's been hard to create something that wasn't filler.
What I've realized is that I've been in execution mode. You know it — task lists, calls, emails. I’ve been checking things off and making progress, including two new CPDs: one for junior and mid-level lawyers on how law firms actually make money, and one for lawyer dads on sharpening focus when life gets loud.
But I haven’t been in reflection mode. And that’s the mode where I create (those CPDs don't count — for me, that's curation, not creation). Where I slow down, zoom out, and reconnect the dots.
Creation gives me momentum.
I created the Happy Lawyer Project (and book!) and the Successful Junior Lawyer Project (and Foundation Workshop Series!). 🙌 Those gave me momentum. When I’m not creating, I can feel the difference. My work gets done, but it doesn’t always move the needle.
It’s a trap I see a lot of smart, driven professionals fall into: we get so deep into the busyness of our business that we forget to create the value that will drive our results.
So here’s what I’ve been asking myself — and maybe it’s worth asking yourself too:
What mode are you in?
And is it serving the value you want to create?
You’ve got this.
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Every morning, I handwrite three pages of journaling (yes, pen and paper). They’re called morning pages, from The Artist's Way. And they have just two rules: 1) keep the pen moving, and 2) fill three pages — even if all you write is “I don’t know what to write.” 📝
Sometimes I write about work, parenting, hopes, or fears. Often I write about logistics (agh!). And sometimes, I stumble into small notes that feel like gifts — exactly what I need in that moment.
I’ve rarely shared them, because they usually feel ahead of me — not wisdom I’ve mastered yet, but wisdom I’m still trying to live.
But maybe some of these notes aren’t just for me.
So today, I’m starting something new:
Notes from the HeartI've been writing fiction again lately. I hadn't touched it for months — and then last week, during a low point, the dam broke. From Wednesday to Friday, I wrote the first draft of a short story: 6,000 words (for reference, my book The Happy Lawyer is about 62,000).
It felt so satisfying.
And yet, almost immediately, I doubted myself:
- Why had it taken so long to start?
- What would I even do with the story?
- Was it a waste of time when my business needed me?
I realized how much energy I was spending on things outside my control. 🤔
The past? Outside my control.
Whether the story becomes popular? Outside my control.
How fast my business grows? Also outside my control. 🤦♂️
Of course I still have influence over the story and my business (not the past — sorry), but there are so many other variables that go into it. They're beyond my control.
I have noticed through years of coaching that when we attach too strongly to outcomes, we risk making our identity brittle. We're more likely to feel anxious and disempowered.
I really only have direct control over two things:
- Deciding what the work is.
- Doing the work.
That's it.
So:
Where are you clenching onto an outcome — when you would be better served by focusing only on the things in your direct control?
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I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience lately—partly because I’m moderating a panel this Friday for the Hellenic Heritage Foundation on The Art of Resilience, and partly because… well, life.
When I break resilience down, I see three components:
- the difficulty (the wave that hits)
- the reaction (how you resist, endure, or adapt)
- the aftermath (what you do with the experience)
Most people focus on the reaction: how to carry more, stress less, stay calm. Some focus on the recovery: how to bounce back faster.
But I’ve been thinking more about how we bounce forward.
If we assume for a moment that “life happens for us,” then every wave has something for us. Each fire leaves a draft under our wings.
Is that true? I can’t say for sure. But I’ve noticed: the more I believe it, the more true it becomes.
So, what does The Art of Resilience mean to you?
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Last week, I wrote about the subtle self-sabotage of chasing the “optimal path”—even when it’s clearly not sustainable. Because burning out from chasing the "optimal path" doesn't just cost you your energy—it costs you a shot at building a path that could actually work for you.
This week, I want to build on that.
Here's where I think **others get it wrong**: they start by talking about WHAT you should do to make your path more sustainable.
But every path to success is unique (depending on your firm, your department, the lawyers you work for, the type of work you do, how much work you do, etc, as well as your strengths, weaknesses, etc.).
Since every path to success is unique (including yours), you have no idea whether what worked for them will work for you (e.g. your buddy Adam might swear by not checking his phone after 7pm, but he's a tax specialist and you're in M&A juggling closings. It's a different game.).
So instead of focusing on what others are doing, focus on HOW they do it—on the main levers that you can adjust to trade a little bit of likelihood of success for a lot of sustainability.
Here are a few:
- Who you’re working for.
- The type of work you’re doing.
- How much work you’re doing.
- The control you have over your schedule.
- Where you’re working from.
- The support you have.
Got others you’d add to the list?
I'm curious: what would you adjust to make your path more sustainable?
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One of the most subtle forms of self-sabotage is chasing the "optimal path" — even if this "optimal path" isn't sustainable.
I see it everywhere: relationships, working out, diets, personal transformation.
And, of course, work.
For example, when you start working at a firm, in addition to "say yes to everything, do it all perfectly, and keep it up as long as necessary", you're told:
- Work for key people (influential partners, or people on the associates/partnership committee) and wow them.
- Eclipse your hours target and ensure you're one of the highest billing associates.
- Never say no to something unless you're completely slammed.
All this to maximize (hopefully guarantee) your success.
Maybe it's because we're type-A, maybe we want to show we can do it, or prove the doubters wrong - whatever the reason, we chase this "optimal path" even when it's not sustainable.
But here's the problem:
- If it's not sustainable, then by definition we can't sustain it through to the end. Yet we still try. And most of us (once we burn out) leave. 🤔
And here's the kicker:
- The opportunity cost of chasing the "optimal path" is not being able to chase the other paths to success that might work for you.
Basically:
If you follow every recommendation, at some point you might not have energy for any of them.
The lucky (or astute) ones eventually pivot. They follow just the recommendations that work best for them — the highest leverage moves, the ones they enjoy, the ones they can stick with.
So why not just start there?
And if you find yourself this weekend thinking "I wish I didn't need to do this" — pay attention.
Maybe you don't.
Maybe it's worth digging into.
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This week we ran a workshop about “Big Personalities & Taking Ownership.” Law is full of big personalities, and learning to flex your style to different bosses/clients is a serious advantage.
👇Check out this flowchart we discussed:
So, what kind of boss do you have?
- Micromanager? Pay attention to their cues and mirror their style.
- Sink-or-swim? Get the help you need from any available source.
- Mixed signals? Over-communicate until you’ve had a clear conversation about expectations.
Each type has its own pros:
✅ Micromanagers give great substantive training—valuable early in your career.
✅ Mixed-signals bosses can be tricky, but you'll learn to read and handle people effectively.
✅ Sink-or-swim leaders push you to grow faster.
✅ Hands-off bosses give you independence but with a safety net.
✅ Gardeners (the dream bosses) nurture your growth.
✅ Blamers may not always have your back, but they're usually outspoken, so if things go smoothly, they can be a helpful champion.
Very quickly though, people start working for us. It begs the question:
WHAT TYPE OF BOSS ARE YOU?
Especially when someone makes a mistake. It’s easy to have someone’s back when everything is going well. The real test is whether they feel safe when 💩 hits the fan.
Don't shoot yourself in the foot as a boss - if you want the pick of the litter when choosing your juniors, pay attention not only to the type of work you're giving, but also how you're giving it.
How do you flex your style when working with different people?
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“I will say this about [fourth year associate] - he’s the best first year associate we’ve got.” That’s what a partner told me during an interview for the Successful Junior Lawyer Project. Ouch.
If you're working hard but feel like you're getting nowhere, you probably expect the relationship between effort and results to look like this:
Partly, this makes sense. Effort is necessary if you want to succeed. (duh Paul) But it’s NOT enough on its own. 🤔 That was the mistake that associate had made - he was working really hard, but it wasn't delivering results. Gone are the days when you can simply grind your way to success. The equation is missing something. The real relationship is this:
It's your DIRECTED effort that gives you results.
If you don't direct your effort, you risk winding up like the associate being described to me above - really good at yesterday’s skills without ever having given yourself a chance to learn tomorrow's (or even today's) skills.
You risk still being seen as a first year.
Turns out, playing it safe is one of the least safe things you can do.
We need to take smart risks and keep growing, so that people see us developing and know we’re ready for the next level. Otherwise, they'll just assume we belong exactly where we are (and if you're in a firm with an 'up or out' model, that can be fatal).
What smart risks are you ready to take? Where are you ready to grow?
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I love Seth Godin, and his advice about imposter syndrome has always resonated:
“When we’re out of our comfort zone, of course we feel like an imposter. So, acknowledge the feeling, and then go ahead and do it anyway.”
Great advice—for some of us. 🤔
I call this the “barrelling through” approach. You push ahead, confident the feeling will fade. It’s great advice if you’re in false positive imposter syndrome—you do belong, but you just don’t believe it yet.
Here’s what I mean:
In the bottom-right quadrant, “barrelling through” works. Over time, you realize you fit in, and the feeling disappears.
But here’s the problem: not everyone starts from the same place.
Imagine you’re the only woman in a room full of men. Or the only racialized person in a room full of white people. Maybe the only junior in a room of senior partners. You likely already stand out. In those situations, barrelling through can backfire.
Even something smaller can throw you off. Recently, I attended an event with 100 people (80 men), and I was one of just four not wearing a suit jacket. 🤵 That’s easy to fix, but it reminded me how quickly you notice the rules aren’t the same for everyone.
Here’s the thing: If you already stand out, imposter syndrome might be telling you something important:
“Be careful. Tread intentionally.”
This does NOT mean “be stuck.” It means move forward—with purpose, at a pace that works for you.
Takeaway:
Sometimes imposter syndrome isn’t holding you back—it’s helping you. It’s slowing you down just enough to assess your next step.
You’ve got this.
—Paul
P.S. The most overlooked group? The top-left quadrant—those who don’t believe they stand out but actually do. That’s where the real career missteps happen.
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I remember the advice I received when I was starting out as a baby-faced lawyer at my big firm. Ultimately, most of it boiled down to: "Say yes to everything, do it all perfectly, and keep it up as long as needed."
Now, this advice can work for you, but it also might not.
It comes from a good place. Too many people say no to the wrong things or say no too often, and they can miss out on the right opportunities or be branded as "not a team player". Too many people treat practice like they did school, where they think it's okay to mail it in on an assignment (i.e. aim for a B) because it's not worth that much of the grade. And too many people start full of enthusiasm and treat it as a sprint when it's really a marathon.
BUT, there are pretty serious traps.
Some traps are obvious (like the pitfalls the advice is helping you to avoid - don't miss your opportunities, squander a chance, or give up too soon). But there are some hidden pitfalls too:
- Saying yes to everything only works if the right types of files are offered to you at the right time in the right order, and not too many of them.
- Doing it all perfectly only works until it doesn't (there is no objective standard of perfect).
- Keeping it up only works until it doesn't (burn out is real my friends).
So, if the traditional advice isn't necessarily reliable or sustainable enough, what works instead? That's what I'm aiming to discover and share with my Successful Junior Lawyer project.
In mid-January, I'll be launching the Successful Junior Lawyer Academy. If this sounds like something that might be interesting, hit reply and let me know and I'll be sure to make sure you know when the founding is happening.
Best,
Paul
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Very few of us set out to be one-hit wonders. 🎵 i.e. We hit success big time, and then burn right out. That's generally not our goal. Most of us want to be successful AND we want to be able to sustain that success over time.
There's a few interesting things I want to point out about this relationship between success and sustainability:
- We all probably have a minimum amount of success we want in life. Sometimes this is driven by past trauma, sometimes by our best selves, and often by a mix. For now, don't judge yourself (or try to change it), just try to be aware.
- We all probably have a minimum amount of sustainability we need. Don't have enough? Then that success you wanted in number 1 above will disappear over time.
- Sustainability is entirely subjective. Don't let someone else (including me) tell you whether you're doing it right. How does it feel to you?
- Our measure of success (not necessarily how we're doing on that measure) is part determined by ourself, and part determined by those around us. Be intentional about who you surround yourself by, and what you're subconsciously accepting from them.
At times I haven't been sure that the promised land exists (where you've got high success that's highly sustainable), but I've seen people who say they're in it, so let's assume it exists. ☀️ However, DON'T presume that their path there will be the same as your path there - considering how bespoke your sustainability (and your journey) is (and are), it would make sense to me that we each have our own journey there.
Finally, don't judge yourself for wherever you are on this chart. 💙 Self-judgment pretty much always drains your cup faster and makes things less sustainable.
Until next time, remember: You got this. 😊
Paul
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The longer I wait, the harder it is to start.
I’m talking about posting articles here on this blog (it’s been 8ish weeks since my last one). But I could have been talking about going to the gym. Or eating well. Or apologizing to someone I love.
We’ve all felt it. The resistance to start gets just a little bit harder every day.
September is here. School started yesterday. Though I may be decades removed from school, it still feels like the start of a new year. And though not much changes overnight, if I let whatever has changed be the push to start, then a great deal has changed.
And so here I am, starting again.
Showing up.
I don't care for applause, I'm just highlighting it as an example of pushing past the resistance. If I can push past the resistance, so can you. I'm not any more special than you, I promise you that. What have you been waiting to do? Waiting to start? Thinking “it’s too late now”…?
Now is as good a time as any. Start small, just start now.
Happy new year! 🥳😊 much love.
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A few days ago I was chatting with the mastermind I run (for lawyers who are fathers who've been called for 10-20 years) and we were chatting about task overwhelm. Stuff is always coming up. Being pulled in a million directions can be enough to lay waste to the best plans. And it's not just about work - you still want to be the best parent and spouse you can be at home.
So how do we do it? Some high level thoughts from the conversation:
- Prioritization - you've got to know your most important priorities, and then actually prioritize them.
- 80/20 and self-compassion - Accept that "perfect" is probably unattainable - put yourself in a position to succeed and trust that you're doing well enough.
- Streamline the process - create rules that will help you navigate the days more easily.
It's these rules I just want to spend an extra minute with. Having them allows you to bypass the extra thinking (and willpower) that might otherwise be necessary to perform your best. For example:
- If you're constantly saying yes to too many things, maybe one of your rules is to wait 24 hours before saying yes (you can say no whenever you want, but to commit to a new task you need to sleep on it first). If you're a junior and this isn't feasible, maybe you institute it only in your personal life.
- Or maybe you've noticed that when you get a substantive response about a complicated subject within 10 minutes, you find yourself wondering how considered their opinion is. So you make a rule for yourself: respond immediately to say you're on it, but (where urgency allows) give it at least two hours before responding substantively.
- Maybe you find at the end of the day you're constantly scrambling to finish the one (or more) things that ABSOLUTELY need to get done that day. You might institute a rule that you start each day with those things.
See how each rule arises from the circumstances? There's almost no universal rules - you need to spend some time with your own work-flow and work-product (and what you WANT each to look like) in order to experiment with rules that might work for you. Then you need to experiment. Reflect, take a step, then do it all again. 😊
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"Yeah, I've done the challenge before - writing 1,000 words every day for two weeks," she said, brushing hair out of her eyes. "Last time I wrote about my project. About this idea that I've had for a long time."
I nodded. She cleared her throat and continued. "This time though, I decided to write my project. I don't know if it's any good, but honestly it's nice to be tackling it."
"How does it feel?" I asked.
Her face split in a grin, her eyes crinkled, and it seemed (if just for that moment) that everything in the world made sense. "Great," she said. But everything about her said that it was much more than great. And the why was clear:
She had gone from ORBITING her dreams to CHARGING towards them. 🚀
From the outside, it can look similar. She was still sitting down to write 1,000 words a day, still related subject matter. But it felt totally different, because this time she was trying to write the story, not about the story.
This is key. 🗝️
Every time we move towards our dream, we begin to see ourselves as people who take action. We gain confidence that we CAN achieve dreams.
When we trust ourselves to do that, it matters less whether the dream is perfect because we know we'll be able to pivot and chase the new one. We're not pinning all our hopes on the one perfect dream, figuring we only get one shot at it.
For the most part, you get as many shots as you take. 🏒
So if you're feeling stuck, maybe don't worry about whether it's the right dream and instead worry about where you're oriented. Are you avoiding it? Or charging directly towards it?
You got this. 😊
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“And then he turns to me and says: ‘We’re busy and fast-paced,’” Alex snorted. “As if I don’t know what that means.” Alex was telling me about an interview he’d just had.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Don’t you know that’s code for ‘poorly managed and disorganized’?” Alex laughed. “Always busy and fast-paced because nobody bothers to think ahead and everyone is scrambling last-minute to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.”
Yes. I had seen that.
“Your poor planning has now become my emergency.” He shook his head. “I’m too old for this s**t now.” [sidebar: Alex is my vintage, not old by any other metric]
I laughed. But Alex wasn’t done.
“Plus, [the interview panel] kept interrupting each other. Do they not realize they’re just a walking red-flag?”
Communication is key, not just in job interviews.
Every time we communicate, we transit multiple messages. Sometimes the message we intend to communicate isn’t the one that others receive. Usually it’s better to pause, ask questions, and listen, than to try to impress people and end up doing the opposite.
And if you’re wondering what question to ask someone else, try asking yourself this: “what question can I ask that, no matter what they answer, I’ll be interested to hear it?”
Interest is hard to feign, and people pretty much always appreciate when you're interested in what they have to say.
Plus, there's always the side-benefit that you might just be that much more impressive when you learn all the things that others are teaching you.
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Unwittingly, I've developed a new specialty. I discovered some time ago that I'm actually really good at helping over-thinkers get unstuck. They're a peculiar beast of people - able to see all the angles of the problem (so it gets overwhelming), a bit too smart for their own good (they think), and then they get stuck in the spin cycle (never a fun place to be).
If this is you, luckily the process to get out is actually really simple:
- Take a lay of the land, noting all options, all internal objections, all competing (internal and external) interests. Fight the urge to spend too long here. Good enough is more than good enough.
- Decide whether it's worth committing to moving past it. If it's not (and sometimes it's not), just let it go.
- Take a single step. Proceed to item 4 below.
- Deal with all the internal shit that comes up as a result of that step. Tease it apart like you would tangled headphones (if, like me, you're luddite enough to still use wired headphones) - i.e. slowly, a little bit at a time. You don't just pick a wire and yank on it. That never works. It's just a little at a time. Be gentle and have compassion. Invariably, you add to the map you drew in step #1 above. When you're ready, go back to item 3 above.
That's it. The journey of a lifetime reduced to 4 simple steps.
It helps to have someone with you (like me 😊 (or a friend)) for the outside POV and accountability, but you can do it on your own too.
Good luck. You got this.
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A lot of us have a certain level of success that we’ve decided we need to have. 💵 I think of it as the dotted green line in this graph. Sometimes, we start to get worried that our success will start to fall below that point, that we lean into a little bit of demanding self-talk in order to fuel our effort and keep our success up.
And then we learn that being hard on ourselves gets us results. 🤔
And so we lean into (somewhat relentless) negative self-talk in order to fuel our effort.
That increased effort allows us to stay about the green line, but has the unfortunate effect of moving us from a “content success” to a “miserable success”. A lot of us (me included) have spent (substantial) time in this spot.
What we tend to forget (or maybe we just don’t believe) is that if we put in the effort without the negative self-talk, we can still be successful, except now we’ll also get to be happy and fulfilled.
If you’ve made the transition, how did you learn to decouple your effort from your self-talk?
-Paul
PS. Truthfully, the vertical axis could more appropriately be termed success rather than effort, success has many variables (of which your effort is just one), but effort is probably one of the ones you have the most control over, hence why I've got it up here.
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POP QUIZ: What's the right way to make art?
- The way other people say to do it.
- Your way.
Did you answer 1 or 2? Well, I think the correct answer is: it depends. What are you making the art for? And are you just starting out? Or are you a master of your craft?
If you only ever focus on #1 (the way you're supposed to do it), you'll just trod a beaten path, and never bring your own unique stamp to it.
It feels like the right way is to always do it your way. Can’t fault that answer. But there are advantages to doing it the way others say to do it. By first learning the basics, we can push our craft; by learning genre we can bend it; and by learning the accepted way, we can infuse deeper meaning and commentary into our work. Take what you like and discard the rest.
So for me, the answer is actually to do both. What's your right choice? I suspect it'll depend upon your circumstances and context.
Sort of like life.
It's helpful to listen to others who've gone before you. Learn what works for them, what helps people feel happy, feel fulfilled, make a difference. But never forget that you also need to do things your way. I’ve met too many people living the way others say to live and feeling trapped and hollow.
But for art? If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend you do whatever is easiest. Just get started. 😊
- Paul
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I still think that the simplest cure for stuckness is the one I wrote about in The Happy Lawyer:
There’s a very simple solution to being stuck. That is: get unstuck.
No, seriously. It’s that simple.
Being stuck is not moving. The opposite of not moving? It’s movement. In other words—take action.
But I've come to see that there's a deeper cure. Recently, I was thinking about a lawyer I know who's dissatisfied with their work allocation - it wasn't what was promised. They resented it, and resented themselves for not speaking up about it. They felt stuck.
The simple solution is to take action (e.g. say something, or ask for new work). However, I think it's possible to feel unstuck WITHOUT taking action. How?
You CLAIM your CHOICE.
This lawyer has chosen to not speak up about this. This lawyer has chosen to say yes to all the new files, even if they're not the desired subject matter. And I'm not saying that's wrong - there's likely very good reasons to have chosen that. What I am saying, is that this was a choice. So although they feel stuck, they can look at it from a different perspective:
- They've never been stuck because they made all the choices to get here.
- And when they're ready (and it doesn't need to be now), they can start making choices to get out of here.
So stuckness is more an internal state than an external state. They may feel stuck, but they are not stuck and have never been stuck. And as soon as they realize that, and claim their choices, the sooner they'll stop feeling stuck.
What do you think? Am I splitting hairs?
Is this a solution in theory but not in practice? My gut tells me it's an advanced solution, and that we should focus on the simple solution until we're ready to handle it, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
- Paul
PS. Importantly, "claiming" isn't just taking responsibility, it's taking responsibility without negative judgment. If you take responsibility for your choices but judge yourself for it, you might find it's counter productive.
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Imposter syndrome. Most of us have felt it at one time or another. And when I asked people to describe it to me, some words got mentioned a lot: “fake”, “pretending”, “exposed”. Or as one person said: “It’s the feeling like I’m managing to trick people into thinking I’m better than I actually am, and the stress comes from thinking that today might be the day I get exposed.”
As I continued my research, some key ingredients of imposter syndrome bubbled up. Here’s my preliminary thinking:
- FAKE - People talked about creating (or at least maintaining) some sort of ruse - a pretense that they were better than they were.
- INSECURITY - People felt like they didn’t belong in the group where they were. Maybe they weren’t good enough, or maybe they felt they were missing some sort of prerequisite to belong (e.g. money, status, success, pedigree, etc.). Whether from systemic issues, personal issues, or beliefs, and whether it's real or just perceived, it can all still lead to imposter syndrome.
- CONSEQUENCES - People worried about what might happen if others exposed the lie.
IN COMMUNITY Importantly, all of these things were in relation to the people around you. People were insecure about belonging to a group, not in a vacuum. And they felt that they’d fooled others, not themselves.
BREAKING THE CHAIN Imposter syndrome didn’t seem to exist without these three things. If people felt like they belonged, it didn’t seem to matter if they were faking it. If people felt like they had accurately portrayed how good they were, then it just became a question of whether they would be good enough - there wasn’t the same worry about being exposed. And if the consequences didn’t matter, people didn’t care. Break any link and the chain falls away.
THE WAY FORWARD Where do we end up? The same place we always do. If you want to make a change, the first place you start is with your self-awareness. If you’ve got imposter syndrome: What’s the ruse? What’s the insecurity? What are you worried will happen?
What would you add? Am I missing anything?
And before you ask: no, I don’t feel qualified to write about this. 😉
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When I give the Happy Lawyer talk, I ask people to identify one current obstacle (that is particularly frustrating) that they're wrestling with right now. Inevitably, I receive answers like:
"Not enough time."
"Not enough hours in the day."
"Too many things to do, and not enough time."
To hear these people, you'd think that giving them a few extra hours a day would solve their problems (to be clear - I'm not judging, I've thought that until recently). The reality is, it won't. They'd just spend those extra hours too. Time is not the issue, time is just the symptom of the real issue(s).
As part of the happy lawyer project, I've identified different variables that happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers approach differently. The thing is:
TIME IS NOT A VARIABLE.
We all have the same amount of time each day. It is a CONSTANT, not a variable. So this discussion around not having enough time is just distracting you from the REAL discussion you need to have.
And that discussion is going to be different for everyone:
- Do you take on too many things? Do you base your worth on what you accomplish?
- Do you feel like you need to say yes to everyone? What if you didn't?
- Do you have unrealistic expectations of what you can get done? What would it look like to be kinder to yourself?
- Do you feel stretched between different priorities that really matter to you? (e.g. doing well at work, but also making sure your child is in rep soccer/hockey) Which priority is more important?
- Do you waste time? (e.g. by doom scrolling, reddit binging, or with shitty TV) What need is the wasting time addressing?
As with pretty much everything else, the first step to your solution starts with self-awareness. The next step? Intentional action (and it doesn't need to be big).
Bon courage! You got this. 😊
-Paul
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One of the most moving testimonials that The Happy Lawyerhas received was from Norman Bacal, a former lawyer and managing partner on Bay St., and author of three books himself. Although he called The Happy Lawyer "a must read" in his amazon review, what floored me was the following note he sent me a few weeks later:
"You might have seen a spike in book sales about 10 days ago. I was speaking at a conference on Mental Health in the profession to a group of paralegals and told them that if they read nothing else (including my Take Charge) it had to be your book in terms of setting career and life priorities and objectives. I ordered them to take out their phones and order it on the spot."
Reviews are one thing. Having a fellow author and speaker recommend your book to an audience is another.
My heart is full. 💙🧡
- Paul
PS. If you've read the book, do you have any feedback for me? It doesn't need to be positive, and it'll be totally confidential unless you tell me otherwise (I published the above with Norm's approval) - I'd just love to hear how it's landed/landing with you. Just go here and let me know.
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What did one lawyer say to the other (when they saw this on instagram)?
“Nice to see you’re reading some fiction.” 😂😬
On the one hand, that’s hilarious. On the other hand, it’s a little sad that so many of us would think that. But the thing I find most interesting? Regardless of whether you believe it’s fiction or non-fiction:
You’re probably right.
If you don’t believe you can be happy in law, that’s probably going to be your reality. If you believe you can be happy, there’s a good chance you’ll figure out a way to make it happen. I would argue that this extends beyond “being happy in law”, all the way to “being a success”, “having a happy marriage”, and so on. If you believe you can do it, you will. If you don't, you won't.
I really try not to be preachy in the book. Instead, I just show you stories of people who’ve found a way to be happy in their lives and their work, and the main levers that they used to get there.
You can too, but first you need to believe it’s possible. Not just for others, but for you too.
You got this. We got this.
- Paul
PS. What’s one belief you have that a friend of yours would probably think is fiction?
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Confession: I love new years resolutions. There's something about looking ahead and dreaming big that appeals to me. But, I recognize that this isn't a universal view. 🤔
One of the most common criticisms I hear is that there's nothing special about a new year. Set your goals and implement all year round. If that's you, great. If that's not you, then why not harness some of the natural renewal of energy that comes with a new year.
If you're going to do that (and with the help of wisdom crowdsourced from my community), here are some of the common pitfalls to avoid when setting resolutions:
- WHY ARE YOU SETTING RESOLUTIONS? What are you hoping life will be like (and feel like) if you achieve the resolution? Are you running towards something or are you running away from something? Too often we set resolutions out of our wounds, and then every time we make progress towards it, we reinforce the conditional nature of our self love or the fact that we aren't good enough as we are. 😔 Not ideal.
- WHAT DO YOU AIM FOR? Two parts to this:
a) Do you set a result goal or a process goal (i.e. do you plan to run a 2hr half-marathon (result goal) or do you plan to go for a run 3x per week (process goal))? Although both types have their merit, my experience with clients and in my own life is that process goals seem to be a better building block of a complete life when we don't have the luxury to go all-in on one specific facet. 💎
b) There's so much wisdom we gain from pursuing our goal that we don't have access to when we set the goal. It's easy to set a goal at the beginning and realize later you've missed the mark. Does your process allow for re-adjustments? Or do you just judge yourself when you're not measuring up to a (non-ideal) standard?
- HOW DO YOU DO IT? Are you realistic with your goals and vision? Do you set your goal for work as if that's your only focus? Do you set your fitness goal as if you don't also have a family to take care of? We need to take into account that we won't always be at our best or be able to devote 100% to our goals (because it will happen). As part of recognizing that we have a finite amount of time and energy, I would note that it's often counter-productive to set too many goals - better to ruthlessly prioritize and then let go of everything else.
If you've just set some new years resolutions, or you're in the process of setting your goals for the year, I'd encourage you to re-examine them. Give yourself permission to finesse and right-size them for the life you want to lead.
Good luck! And bonne courage! 😎
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Yesterday afternoon, I had been reasonably productive and thought I would "reward" myself with some social media time. 🤔 I only had about an hour before I needed to go pick up the kids and I needed to do some chores and make dinner, but I thought I deserved a "treat."
I went on LinkedIn, responded to a message, spent a few minutes scrolling through my feed. Went on Facebook, responded to a few messages, spent a few more minutes scrolling through my feed. Before I knew it, I was feeling anxious. Frustrated. Annoyed. 😤😠
And it wasn't the content I was reading. The content was fine. Very vanilla. No, I was feeling shitty because I knew I was wasting my time. I looked at my watch. 30 minutes until I had to pick up the kids.
I had spent half of my free time in a doom scroll.
Not what I intended to happen. But it did.
Normally, I'd just be off balance and a bit pissed, and I would struggle to not take it out on my kids. But yesterday went differently. I checked in with the part of me that was making me feel shitty. Its message to me? "Stop ####ing wasting your time."
Immediately, a rush of gratitude filled me. Sure, I still felt anxious, frustrated, and annoyed, but I found myself feeling grateful that this part of me cared enough to fight for my focus and my free time. Sure, it made me feel shitty, but if I'm being honest I probably wouldn't have listened to its message if it hadn't.
Every day, every moment, we have an opportunity to be in relationship with ourselves. You can judge yourself, be anxious and frustrated, or you can be grateful and compassionate.
We're all doing our best. You included.
Much love,
Paul
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A bit over two years ago, I made a life-changing discovery. Already years into my coaching journey, I’d spent time plumbing the depths of who I was - figuring out my strengths, what made me tick, and why I showed up in the world the way I did. I’d started a business. I had a family I loved.
Life was great. 😊
At the same time, I was having trouble.
I’d always wanted to be a father, and now that I had kids, it was turning out a little differently than I hoped. My kids were amazing, but I felt off. 😬 I hadn’t just changed overnight when I became a dad. I still wanted to go out with my friends. I still wanted to relax and play computer games. 🎮 There was a part of me that still wanted to be a single dude free from responsibility. And yet there was a different part of me that wanted to be a great dad. And another part that wanted to build my coaching business into something impressive. These parts were at odds - and they went to great lengths to try and be the one calling the shots. Meanwhile, a different part (a critic) was constantly undermining me - telling me that I wasn’t good enough and that I was an imposter (how could I be a life coach and not have this figured out?).
A war had started within me.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not that pleasant to host a battleground inside. I felt like I was broken. I wanted the war to stop. And for that, it felt like I needed to declare a winner.
For a time I leaned heavily into responsibility. On the one hand, I’m glad I did. It’s what allowed me to be where I am now. But at the same time, the more I pushed down this need to be me, the more it started to fester inside.
And then I discovered IFS.
The IFS (Internal Family Systems) paradigm recognizes that we all have multiple parts inside of us. And that even though our parts might disagree about certain things (like mine certainly did), they all want the best for us. This new viewpoint (plus the help of some professionals) allowed me to make sense of what was going on inside me, and achieve a measure of peace without persecuting any of my internal needs/viewpoints/parts.
I was integrating ALL of who I was.
Immediately I tried to get trained in IFS. But I couldn’t. For two years, I entered every lottery for new trainings but I was never picked. Until now.
I’ve FINALLY started my IFS Level 1 training (just a week ago in fact). IFS integrates near-perfectly with the coactive model that my practice is based on. I’m thrilled for the work I will do wielding both of these frameworks.
I’m leveling up as a coach and a healer. 😊
What moves have allowed you to level up in your life?
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Ready for a hot-take? 🔥🤔 I reserve the right to be wrong, but I don't think I am (otherwise I wouldn't share it).
The ability to look at challenges as blessings is one of the MOST underrated skills.
We all get delivered shit hands from time to time. Some of us more frequently than others. Whenever I get delivered a shit hand, it feels unfair. "If only I had more time to build my business." "If only I had more money." "If only I didn't have to work as a lawyer." These are all things I have thought (though that last one not in the past year 😊).
But there are others I've heard from clients and friends: "If only I had a boyfriend/girlfriend." "If only I had bought a house before the run-up in prices." "If only I had a family." "If only I had won that case." "If only I had/hadn't taken my money out of the market." "If only I had never met him." "If only..."
I'm NOT trying to take away from any of these challenges. Many of these are legit hard to bear. I still struggle with my own.
Rather, I've been on the lookout for examples of the old stoic philosophy: THE OBSTACLE IS THE WAY, and it's amazing how many people's responses to their shit hands are examples of it.
This doesn't mean the obstacle is IN the way, or that the obstacle is something you just need to put up with (like traffic on the commute home). This means that the only way to your future is through the obstacle.
This means YOU SEEK IT OUT.
So yeah, the shit hands suck. And definitely do your best to avoid getting them. But to the extent you've got one, I'd vote that the best thing you can do is embrace it and seek it out. Move through it.
Cause you're an amazing person doing amazing things, and the next step on your journey is through that shit hand. 🧡💙 I'm rooting for you.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Or is it not underrated at all?
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"Well, hold on. I don't know that that's right," Matt said, interrupting me in the middle of a sentence. 😒
Matt is one of several people that I've spoken to recently who are in the process of "healing their relationship with the masculine." Those are their words (not mine), but what it usually means is that they've had men in their lives (often family) who were too much. Too oppressive in their way of being, too selfish in their way of doing, too suffocating in their views.
It leaves its mark on these people. Their growth is changed (sometimes stunted), much in the way that a tree will grow sideways if constantly subject to strong winds. 🌲🌲
So Matt interrupted me, and even though I was in the middle of a really important point, I let him continue. For two reasons:
- The first (default) reason is that people often aren't ready to listen when they're waiting for their turn to talk. Since I speak to be heard, I will often not continue if I think people are holding onto their ideas for when it's their turn again.
- The second (more important) reason is that he's in the middle of healing his relationship with the masculine. That doesn't just mean that I should model a masculine presence that is secure even when being interrupted, but also that I should let him exercise his own assertiveness and right to interrupt - to make himself more an author of the conversation and less just a recipient. To let him step into his "masculine" even in our call together.
HOW the discussion is taking place is often as important as WHAT is being said. And if you let go of the need to be right (or smart, or helpful or ...) and instead think about what might best serve the other person, you'll be able to step into this too.
With much love,
- Paul
PS. Matt may be a man, but I've similar conversations with women. The only reason I used the word "masculine" is because that's what they use. If you don't like the word, try using the word "agency" instead.
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Big news. 😯 Yesterday, I submitted the final version of The Happy Lawyer book manuscript to the production team. Next up is cover, back-cover blurb, and some of the mechanics (like what categories to list under on amazon). We're self-publishing, and the team should turn it around in 2-2.5 months, which means we're looking at a late September / early October release for the book.
I'm VERY excited. 😃 Also, tired and out-of-sorts. 🥱
You ever get sick on the first day of vacation? I'm flirting with that right now. Not sick yet, but my body is raising its proverbial hand to say: "Hey, chill out dude. We need a breather."
So today is breather day. And if I still push too hard today (old habits die hard sometimes), tomorrow can be breather day too.
I've been working on the Happy Lawyer Project for almost 2.5 years now. I knew I'd get to this day eventually, and I'm pretty pleased that this day is today. Slow consistent steps are highly underrated, I think.
Sending you love, wherever you're at and whatever you're up to.
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Time for me to bring forward some of the earliest lawyer wisdom I have to my life right now. 🦉🦉 When I was a first year lawyer just finishing my first BIG deal that I'd quarterbacked (with just me and the senior partner), he sat me down days before closing.
"Paul, I've got a piece of advice for you."
His eyebrows raised, as if trying to drive home the import of his words. "It looks like this is going to close in three days. This is the perfect time to sit down and review the agreement front to back. Look at all the details, the cross-references, the values - especially the dollar values - and make sure they make sense. I'll be doing it. I think it's a good idea if you do it too."
📃 Waving the agreement in front of me, he continued.
"After this thing gets signed, trust me, you'll be constantly second-guessing yourself. Running back to the agreement and scrambling to see whether we did things right. But then you won't be able to fix it." He turned to go but stopped in the doorway. "Plus, you won't be able to bill for it."
It sounds like common sense (and it is), but it can be hard to remember in the moment when you're tired and you just want the deal to close:
- THE BEST TIME FOR A REVIEW IS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. 💙🧡
My manuscript for The Happy Lawyer book, is very nearly, almost, totally complete. So it's time for one last cover-to-cover to make sure I caught everything.
Much love,
Paul
PS. In our review, we found one mistake. It benefited our side, but it wasn't the business deal. My partner shot the other side (just the lawyers, no clients) a note letting them know. Classy.
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I was interviewing a lawyer who'd been the general counsel for a publicly listed company. He'd done well for himself. Part of it, he asserted, was that he was very in control of what he could control.
"I'm not too materialistic," he said. "I paid my debts, built up my FU money [PK's note: FU stands for Freedom Unlimited 😊], and I did my best to get to that point as soon as possible."
"Why was it important to you?" I asked.
"I'm not stuck. I don't need the money. I get to choose what to do."
"Was it hard?"
"Well, don't get me wrong," he said. "I want things too. I'm not some monk that meditates all day. I like nice things." He chuckled. "The thing is, we all have a threshold. You see, everything that I want that I don't have costs at least $5,000."
My eyes widened. That definitely wasn't me.
He saw the look on my face and laughed. "You have the threshold too, it's just probably a different number. You've probably bought everything you want that costs less than $30."
"Yeah, my threshold is definitely higher than $30."
"Right," he said. "I've just done my best to keep that threshold down and I've never let it expand beyond my means. You want to buy that ferrari? Go ahead. Buy the ferrari. But you gotta realize you're a slave to the ferrari."
I nodded.
"Thing is," he continued, "I get to choose. And that freedom to me is more important than anything else I could buy."
💵💵💵
This is an example of a lawyer clear on what he wants who acts in an aligned way to get it for himself. He doesn't need to work anymore, but he still does. When we can be clear on what matters most to us and we act intentionally in a way that sets us up for success, the game is more than half won.
How clear are you on what you want?
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A few days ago, I got this download while journaling. It felt somewhat universal, and so I want to share it with you:
Dear Paul, it's your desire to avoid negative emotions that causes them to persist. You're part of the problem. When you react to your difficult emotions by avoiding them, lashing out, or numbing, you teach yourself that they're dangerous. Hell, by calling them negative emotions in the first place (instead of just unpleasant ones), you teach yourself that they're dangerous. And then the more dangerous they are, the more you try to avoid, distract, or numb when they come again. It becomes a feedback loop.
NEWS FLASH: They're not negative. Just unpleasant. Stop creating the problem.
When I was a kid I hated dark chocolate. Too bitter. Gimme the sweet stuff, please. Now that I'm grown I've come to really enjoy the bitterness. I'd rather eat 80% dark chocolate than 60% dark chocolate. And I'll usually just walk past milk chocolate.
We can learn to appreciate (if not enjoy) all of our feelings. Just because they hurt doesn't mean anything's wrong.
So the next time you feel an unpleasant emotion, do you best to acknowledge it and, if you can, thank it for being there. You're only getting it because you signed up for this thing called life. It's part of the price of admission, and not a bad thing at all. Just unpleasant. And you (like me) can handle unpleasant things.
Peace.
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A lawyer said that to me recently. Not in anger or despair or anything, just a calm, collected point-of-view on what it takes to be a great lawyer. And that is: everything.
The funny thing? For that lawyer, it was true.
Yet, there are so many lawyers for whom it is NOT true.
Let me be clear, I don't think the goal is to try to remove all the costs of being a lawyer. I believe that there's nothing in life that doesn't come without some sort of cost (even if it's the lost opportunity cost of pursing something different). So the real exercise then is in: 1) minimizing the costs, and/or 2) trying to make sure that they're something you're okay with paying (some lawyers I spoke with are okay with working super long hours, others want to make sure they're interested in each deal they work on).
There are so many variables at play here: industry, practice area, sex of the lawyer, private practice / private sector / public sector, seniority/responsibility, colleagues, commute/location, etc. I could go on and on.
The most important variable to start with is: what do you WANT (out of work, out of life, out of your relationships, etc). And I think the one a lot of people forget to ask is: how can I get even better at what it is I'm doing in order to get more leverage (with colleagues/clients or broadly within the market) to get what I want.
Pay attention to those two variables, and I believe that you'll be able to both minimize the costs and align them to be something you don't mind paying. In other words, you won't feel that being a lawyer conflicts with almost every aspect of life.
-Paul
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"I never thought I'd be saying this," he said. "but I think the goldfish really has something on the elephant."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, an elephant (🐘) never forgets, and a goldfish (🐟) has a memory of what, 3 seconds?" he said.
"Yeah. So you want to be a goldfish?"
"For certain things, absolutely. When I was younger I remembered all my mistakes, all my failures, I thought I was helping myself. I wasn't." He paused and took a second to look out the window and away from our zoom screen. "I actually think part of it has been getting older," he continued. "I just care a bit less now and I put it more in perspective -- it's not a big deal. And that makes it a lot easier to forget."
I nodded, hand cramping while I scribbled down what he was saying.
"And that," he added after a moment, "makes me happier."
🐟🧡 This lawyer was on to something. Carrying all your mistakes with you is like trying to drive your car with a parachute out the trunk. You'll get to where you're going, but it'll be harder, slower, and it'll take far more energy.
We have habitual ways of thinking (particularly when it comes to thinking about our mistakes), so don't expect to change it overnight. At the same time, don't let that be the excuse why you don't bother to tackle it at all. You've got this.
Much love,
Paul
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I was biking home from giving my Happy Lawyer talk last week when I ran across this art installation. I had to stop and take a photo.
I have to say, I don't agree with it. Here's what I believe:
We don't get the happiness we want, nor do we get the happiness we deserve. We get the happiness we BELIEVE we deserve.
The more I do this work (coaching, the Happy Lawyer project, etc), the more I see that our realities end up being reflections of what we believe they are. Immensely talent people who don't believe in their talent don't take the risks to put themselves out there. Nice people who believe they're the type of people who are in rocky painful relationships often end up in rocky, painful relationships.
What do you believe for yourself? Are you worthy of love? Are you resilient? Are you capable? Are you committed?
When you argue for (and believe in) your limitations, you get to keep them.
The first step (as always) is leaning into self-awareness. Figure out what you believe. Once you see that, you can start to see where it serves you and where it doesn't, and where reality agrees with it and where it doesn't.
May you know your worth.
Much love,
Paul
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"I'd call it a constant battle, but it's not. I've given up," he said. "I know I'm a people pleaser. I want to answer every email and be loved by everyone."
He laughed, at ease in our interview. "And at the same time, I want to be there for my family. I want to have time and energy for them. So it was easier for me to not fight my nature, but instead chose a job with natural boundaries so that I didn't have to fight my nature."
I nodded, frantically scribbling down everything he was saying. "I can go over and above in my job, and yet still have time for my family. Yeah, some evenings I'm working, especially when deals are closing, but I like to work hard."
This guy (yes, he was a happy lawyer) had been incredibly intentional with his decisions. He knew himself. He embraced his nature. And so he picked a job where the expectation and the culture was one of balance.
"It was just easier for me to find a job where all the lawyers there had the balance I wanted than to try to swim against the stream and create the balance I wanted at my old job."
I've seen people create the balance they want. For some, it's not that big a deal (maybe they don't want that much balance or maybe they're happy to buck the trend). For others, it's harder.
Know thyself. It's important for lawyers too (and everyone else 😊).
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I spoke to one ex-lawyer for the Happy Lawyer Project who wished she'd had more confidence to just be who she is, and not try to conform to the parts of the practice that were shoved onto her and that didn't fit (especially the macho part -- that, and the unsustainable caseload).
In Rising Strong, Brené Brown talks about the importance of regret. It may be uncomfortable, but it's one of our best teachers.
This ex-lawyer has some regret.
Not necessarily that it had turned out differently, but it was clear from talking to her that she would do things differently if she were in that situation now. She currently does things differently because she went through that experience, and learned.
"I wish I had fought harder to find my giants," she'd said. There's the feeling she really could have thrived if she'd done it her way. And the expression, if you don't know it, comes from Sir Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
It all starts with awareness.
She has awareness now, after the fact. You, in the middle of whatever you're going through right now, have the opportunity to lean into awareness now. Some questions to get the awareness-train out of the station:
- How am I doing?
- If I could make this better in any way, what would I change?
- What am I afraid of?
Just remember, you are someone else's giant.
You've got this. 🧡💙
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I've got something weird to say today. But one quick thing first - last week I was talking with my client (who had come to me about career stuff), and we were talking about her work, her life, her vision for herself, but most of all, how she was relating to herself now. And then a flash of insight hit me. I tend to shy away from pronouncements, but I couldn't help myself.
"You came to me for the career stuff. That's why you're here. But that's not your journey." I said. "Your real journey is learning to love yourself. To be self-compassionate. And while you're on that journey, the career stuff will get sorted out too."
I could hear my client nodding over the phone. Something about this truth resonated with both of us.
And here's the weird thing: The universe provides. And I'm not talking about my client.
I'm talking about ME.
See, the reason this resonated so strongly with me is because I AM ON THE SAME F###ING JOURNEY.
I think the journey is about building my business, I think the journey is about writing a book, I think the journey is about helping others. But it's not. It's about loving myself. And while I'm on that journey, the rest will get sorted out.
You ever hear the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears"? I've found it to be incredibly true. And I am both student and teacher at the same time.
So go forth into your world with love. Love for yourself and love for others. It's your birthright to feel worthy in your own skin. I want it for you. I want it for me.
And we can. And we will.
Peace + 💙
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I talk to a lot of people who are unhappy with their job, but it feels too good to leave. They're often paid too well. This is NOT golden handcuffs (where they can't afford to leave), these people often can afford to leave - it just feels stupid. Who can give up that sort of the money without assurances they're making the right choice? But it's hard to truly get assurances in life.
😬
So they sit there stuck trying to figure out there way forward.
Often, they sit in that space a long time, slowly getting more and more bone-weary. But their job affords them a lot of parts of their life they really like (usually some combination of money and time-flexibility (or both)).
But they're not happy.
And some part of them tells them that a different job will make them happy.
The truth:
- Wherever you go, that's where you are.
We have patterns of thinking, of behaving. When we leave and go somewhere else, those patterns COME WITH US. So we CAN'T make our move and figure out our next steps without ALSO working on ourselves. Without also becoming the person who is happy.
The truth (part 2):
-
the more you go easy on yourself, the easier it will be.
-
the more you take action, the easier it will be.
-
the more you love yourself, the easier it will be.
Start. Start small. It gets easier.
Much love.
- Paul
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Results aren't linear. Whether you're going to the gym, learning a new skill, or just trying to figure out how to love yourself, results are (almost?) never linear.
As Seth Godin has pointed out, if your bike tire needs 35 PSI, it's the air just around 35 PSI that makes the most difference. It may even be practically flat at 20 PSI.
When you're going to the gym, you get major strength gain the first few times you go. This isn't from your muscles, but rather from your nervous system learning how to better use the muscle you already have. After that, your strength gain slows a lot because it requires your body to actually build new muscle.
But there are two patterns I've noticed:
- The stands are full of people with opinions who've never actually done anything.
- The last mile is the least crowded. A lot of people start, get to good enough, and then stop.
My two takeaways:
- starting is key
- persistence is pretty important too.
If you can't do both, don't worry, start with 1, we all do. At some point you may feel ready to bump to 2. And if you never do? That's okay too.
You're in the race. You're LIVING. That's worth celebrating.
Much love,
Paul
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It's been almost two months since my last post. 😬
It feels weird to write - but there have been a few times over the last few months where I've thought of something worth sharing but I couldn't get over the obstacle of not having shared anything recently.
When you pause something (like I did with my emails), I've noticed that it can sometimes be hard to UNpause. I find that the longer you remain paused, the harder it gets.
This has been my experience with my emails and blog posts, as well as with going to the gym, as well as with any habit I've been trying to cultivate (especially habits visible to others).
The good news? 🤔 The solution is easy:
🧡
Start.
💙That's it. Go to the gym. Pick up the phone and call your friend. Cook one meal. Send that email. Write that post.
Don't worry about what people think. Don't worry about what you think. Don't worry about what comes next.
Just start. Everything is easier in motion.
Much love.
Paul
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I struggled with anxiety for years. I saw a psychologist about it in 2012 or so. We did cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) together. It made a big difference, but it never really got rid of my anxiety. I think I now know why.
In a way, I've spent the previous decade trying to figure it out. There is the most obvious reason - anxiety is an emotion. 🎭 Emotions come and ago. And they're an important part of the human experience.
Anxiety isn't actually bad or negative. It's just uncomfortable. And it was my desire for comfort (and maybe more importantly, my desire to avoid discomfort) that had me wish it wasn't there. I got anxious about my anxiety. Perversely, thinking it was bad and wanting it gone made it worse and helped it stick around a lot longer.
So, if emotions are not good or bad, what are they?
They are messengers of deep needs and values that you have. 🧡💙
Back in 2012, I had somewhat competing values - I wanted to do a great job, I wanted people to like and respect and value me, and I wanted to live my life and have time for fun. I happened to exist in a situation (junior corporate associate at big firm) where I couldn't figure out a way to do all that. I wasn't prepared to ruffle feathers, and I also wanted to carve out time for my life and never have to cancel plans. My anxiety was telling me that I was going to miss out on one (or both) of those goals. It was worry that I wasn't going to meet the standards I'd set out for myself. 😞
Until I changed my physical situation (by leaving my job or otherwise) or my mental situation (what I wanted, the actions I permitted myself, my beliefs about how things worked, etc.), the anxiety was never going to go away completely - it still had a message it needed delivered.
So the keys to dealing with it:
-
Realize it isn't bad. Accept it when it comes up.
-
Try to figure out what it's trying to tell you.
-
Make appropriate changes (whether situational or mental (e.g. changing beliefs or letting go of expectations)).
Well, fast forward and I've done that, and the anxiety still comes up. So there was something I was missing:
Part of my anxiety was physical.
I associated anxiety with a particular physical feeling in my body. And when it came up I "felt anxious". I hated this feeling (which makes achieving #1 really hard).
I've been doing breathwork lately (specifically, the Wim Hof method). There's a part of his method where you expel all the air from your lungs and hold your breath for some time.
And that feeling, where you're sitting there and all you want to do is breathe and your entire body wants to squirm. And then you feel like you have insects crawling all over you. Well, that feels pretty darn similar to my anxiety.
So doing this breathwork is not just achieving whatever benefits Hof says it will (my buddy who I trust on these things has looked at the science and says it's legit), it's also a form of exposure therapy for my anxiety. I get that feeling and I just sit with it. It's not bad. It's part of the process. In a way it's a good feeling because it shows I'm a person that follows through with my commitments.
So now when I get that uncomfortable feeling, it's not a big deal. I'm getting #1 on lock.
I'm purposefully sending this on Sunday evening because I remember how terrible I used to feel then. If that's you right now {{ subscriber.first_name }} I'd encourage you to take a few minutes and sit there (perhaps with pen and paper) and figure out what's going on.
And if you want any help, holler at me. I can help. One of my gifts is listening and seeing what's going on underneath.
Much love.
- Paul
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It's November 1st as I write this, which means that Halloween is over and my favourite season is around the corner! I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. It's not actually Christmas 🎄🎅 (though I'm looking forward to that too).
It's almost New Year's Resolution season!!! 😁
Yes, I'm a nerd re transformation. And I have been for years (esp. w.r.t. NY resolutions).
When we make a new year's resolution, we're invariably doing it because we WANT something.
Let's say we make a resolution to go to the gym 3 times a week. Or to start a blog. We want to work out, not because we like being at the gym, but because we want to be stronger and healthier. We want to write, not because we actually like writing, but because we want to have written and communicate our ideas to people. You get the point.
News flash: 📰 ⚡⚡ There's nothing special about January 1st.
If you want to be healthier, fitter, stronger, smarter, more likeable, a better guitar player, etc., then you want it. You can either fit it into your life, or you cannot. If you cannot, let it go without guilt. And if you can, then honour your desires. Now. So why wait to start?
The worst time to start something is "later." The second worst time to start something is "tomorrow."
The best time to start something is "now."
Don't waste the momentum you have now by waiting for the perfect time to start. That time doesn't exist.
Our society compounds this problem by wagging fingers at those foolish enough to start something before they were ready. That's bullshit. I've never really been ready until after I've done it. Anything I've accomplished, it's because I started it. You're more likely to start if you start now rather than putting it off.
I didn't start it when it was perfect, but whenever I could.
So maybe figure out what one of your new year's resolutions is going to be, figure out the smallest possible step you could take towards that, and take it today.
Until next time, dream big and live bigger.
Much love,
Paul
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It hit me as soon as I heard it - "What needs to die in order for life to take place?" I don't know. 🤔 What needs to die? What is waiting to take its place? I'm sharing my reflections (below) with you in case you have a gentle insistent knocking in your heart or soul, as I do right now.
Thursday:
If it takes death for there to be birth, what needs to die for me to birth this dream? These dreams? What am I okay with letting die?
Saturday:
What needs to die for my new birth? the hustle.
What is being born? connection. faith. trust.
It feels different, this silence. Like I am coming home to myself. 🧡💙
May you ever be at peace in the company of yourself.
Much love,
Paul
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The shallow layer was that I was feeling antsy and every few minutes I had to fight the urge to raid my fridge. 🤤🍪🍧 The deeper layer was that I was wondering if I was doing enough. Actually, that's not true. I had decided I wasn't doing enough, and I was telling myself that unless I got my act together, I was going to flame out and be a failure. 😔
This was just yesterday morning.
I've lived enough of those days to know how they go. If left unchecked, they end up with me stuffing my face before dinner starts, losing my temper with my son, and wondering if I'm ready to quit food forever. 🍕🍕🍕 Your version of these days may go different - maybe you end up on the couch with netflix and a pint of B&Js, or maybe you end up (subconsciously) picking a fight with your spouse just so you can focus on something important (and immediate).
I was determined that this day would go different. And so I asked myself: "what message do I really need to hear right now?" And the answer came immediately:
"yo, chill." 🧊❄
We make these assessments of the future by extrapolating data. My brain seems to have a 3 day memory limit, so if I haven't solved a massive crisis by Monday lunch I'm normally convinced I'll never accomplish anything again.
What's the key to pulling out of these tailspins? For me, yesterday, the key was to chill out. 🧊🧊🧊 To remember it's all going well. That I'm already a success, and that grasping never actually worked. I often like to give myself permission to get nothing done. And truly believe it.
When I'm okay with getting nothing done, I usually get something done (such as me writing this for you). But this isn't meant to game the system - I'm okay even if I get nothing done.
Pema Chodron talks about the approach of maitri (loving kindness). You see what's going on, you don't judge it, and instead you just love on yourself.
I'm going hard on myself? okay. Time to chill out and be cool. ❄🧊❄
What message do you find pulls you up out of a tailspin?
Paul
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"What are your thoughts on this statement?" he asked, "We heal, stretch, and grow, proportional to the amount of safety we feel."
Oh I don't know. I thought, That's a good question Jonathan. Jonathan (of https://tidaltransformation.com/), runs the Dragonfly Mastermind that I am a member of.
It's funny. I've never really thought about safety in the context of transformation, but ... I think it belongs. After all, one of my first (and most important) jobs with any new client is establishing and maintaining the safety of our space together.
We discussed it a bit until Jon turned it on its head. "What about this: 'We heal, stretch, and grow, exponentially in relation to the amount of safety we feel.'?"
Well f###, he had to add math. 😬😂
Now my mind won't let go (it's a bit of a junkyard dog and won't let go once it gets its teeth into something). So I've been thinking about this ever since. Here are my initial thoughts:
For transformation to occur we require two things:
FORCE - a force pushing us out of our status quo, and
ACTION - we need to actually take a step outside our status quo. The more steps, the more transformation.
But it's simplistic to think that we change only when the FORCE of change is greater than the FORCE of keeping the status quo. This is because Forces actually come with directions.
Take this little diagram for example:
If Force B is the status quo force, and Force A and C are transformational forces pushing in opposite directions, then NO CHANGE happens. This is true even though the total force of change (5lbs+15lbs) is GREATER than the force of keeping the status quo (10lbs) because force has a direction involved and so once you subtract A from C, then there's only 10lbs of transformational force, which is the same as the status quo force.
Great Paul, but I don't like your high school-level physics chart. Gimme something that applies to my life.
Fine, let's flesh it out for a girl named Angel:
-
Force C is the force for her to sing. She just really wants to sing and put herself out there and make music. Hell, she wants to be a professional musician. 🎤👩🎤
-
Force B is that status quo force. The judgement of her peers and her fear about being ostracized.
-
Force A is her parents saying: "you've got to go get a responsible job that will earn money"
That hits too close to home. 😬😬 Here she is feeling the urge to step into a new version of herself that actually breathes life into song (and you better believe it would - she has the voice of an angel) but she's being held back. If her parents had instead said "follow your passion", then maybe A and C point in the same direction and she's off to the races.
Not that it's her parents fault, or that "follow your passion" is the right advice, I'm just trying to show that the direction of your influences matters.
But there's something else that's incredibly important: COMMUNITY
-
COMMUNITY (good): let's say that most of her friends sing and/or are following their passion. All of a sudden that B force shrinks and Angel is probably singing.
-
COMMUNITY (bad): Unfortunately, community cuts both ways: Let's say all her friends are dickheads who love nothing more than to judge other people. All of a sudden B is twice as big and even with her parents encouraging her to follow her passion, she aint doing shit.
Paul, you started the story with safety. Where is it? Don't Chekhov's gun us!
Don't worry, I'm much too experienced a writer to do that (often). 😊🤷♂️😁
So, where does safety come in? Well, it certainly plays a part in community. A good community helps you feel safe to belong even as you explore who you are, but I think it probably plays a bigger role. More on that later.
I would love to hear your experiences - what has been at play when you've transformed? Or when you've NOT transformed? is it as simple as FORCE (which is power in a direction) and ACTION? or am I missing something(s)?
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Life is great. It really is. And yet sometimes it feels like there's something scary just around the corner.
I sometimes have this feeling like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. 🥾
It can be vulnerable when everything is going right. Particularly because the only constant in life is change. My parents are alive. My kids are alive. My marriage is strong. My business is growing. That might mean that most of my misfortune is ahead of me. 😨😓
What a depressing thought!!
You may be thinking: Paul STFU! It was a pleasant Thursday morning until you came around! 😡
Hear me out!
It may be depressing, but burying your head in the sand doesn't tend to work that well (unless you're an ostrich?).
One of my biggest fears is that I'll outlive my kids. And the chance of this will exist every day until it crystalizes one way or another (because one of us dies).
That means something very clear - getting comfortable dancing in the space with that fear is the only way I'm going to get to enjoy the time I have with them before one of us croaks (though hopefully it'll be me first).
Pema Chodron talks about how life exists on this precipice where we feel very vulnerable, and we have the choice to either lean into ourselves, or to lean away and let our hearts harden.
💙🧡
So maybe this morning, lean into one of the old stoic truths - MEMENTO MORI: remember that one day you too will die. 💀💀
If all of this makes you sad, know that that's okay and that's normal.
If all of this makes you really sad, it might be time to look at how you're spending your life.
A friend of mine said to me after his father got a bad health diagnosis: "Yeah, it's terrible. And it's sad. But he seems to be taking it well and, truthfully, it's sort of nice to not feel like the other shoe is going to drop. It's like, yeah it's terrible, but I can handle this."
His shoe dropped, and he could handle it. 🥾🥾
You know what? YOU'LL be able to handle it too.
So try to lean into the present moment while you have it. Don't let your heart harden. Lean into the vulnerability and just enjoy the f### out of the moments you have with those you love.
Much love,
Paul
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I was surprised, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. 🤔 I have always considered myself a good problem solver. I'm a smart guy, and I believe I can figure out complex problems - it's one of my strengths.
So when I was assessed using the EQ-i 2.0 emotional intelligence assessment and Problem Solving was my lowest score, I was pretty darn surprised!
The EQ-i 2.0 model itself is quite comprehensive. There are 5 composite categories, with each of them having 3 subscales. The 5 main composite categories are: Self-Perception, Self-Expression, Interpersonal, Decision Making, Stress Management. If you're interested in the subscales (plus a short explanation of each), I've included a snippet from my assessment explaining it all at the bottom.
So to get 20 scores total (each composite and subscale) and to have Problem Solving (which is one of the subscales in Decision Making) be my lowest - well I was a bit surprised.
I got on the phone with my EQ-i coach and we had a conversation that went something like this:
Him: "So, did you get a chance to read the report?"
Me: "Hey, what's up with this - how is my problem solving score so low?"
Him: "You seem surprised. What surprises you about it?"
Me: "Well, I'm good at problem solving! I always have been. It should be higher."
Him: Mmm-hmmm.
Me: "Maybe the assessment doesn't work right, or doesn't work for me."
He just smiled.
In retrospect, I wonder how many times he's heard that. 😬🤷♂️😂
Me: "So, why is it low?"
Him: "Let's take a look at the scores and see how the assessment came to that score."
See, the Problem Solving subscale isn't just pure mental computational power - it's actually how you solve problems once your emotions are involved and recognizing how they effect your decision making process. So he pulled up a few questions that go into the problem solving score and we talked through them.
Sure enough, there was room to grow. 👍
I've been able to experience this situation on the other side too.
Last week I completed my certification in providing this assessment, and part of the certification process was me coaching some of the other participants on their own results. And the sessions were fantastic. I still did some of my regular coaching that I've been mastering over the years (and that I love so much), but the report allowed us to dive in at a deep level right from the get-go. It was exciting! 😊🤓
Want to find out more? Holler at me here.
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Here's a poem I wrote. I wanted to share it with you:
Roses are red, violets are blue, 🌹
I have a voice inside that says “I’m not as good as you.”
it’s a strong voice because it’s had lots of practice,
that’s why I’m strong, successful, fit, and fabulous.
I’ve relied on this voice like a crutch and a cane,
in pursuit of riches, love, and fame.
This voice serves me, but it’s harmful too,
to the point where sometimes I don’t know what to do -
to exile the voice or hand it the keys to the city
both options have merit, more’s the pity.💙🧡
The voice is common and called many names
like saboteur, inner critic, gremlin, or shame,
but even though its methods are sometimes quite mean,
I call this voice friend, for it’s on my team.
I can love the voice without condoning what it does
by seeing its intention through forgiveness and love.
Though the way may be hard, it’s worth it to persist,
because there’s a truth we all to often resist:
the voice is me, and I am the voice,
and I deserve love because I exist.
I've been stepping into my own voice lately. This is my first poem, but I've been writing songs. I'll probably share them at some point.
You'll also see that I'm taking a stand for how we treat this voice of ours. This "inner critic". More on that later.
Oh, one last thing - you too deserve love because you exist. If it feels right, take a moment to thank yourself for caring about yourself, forgive yourself for being hard on yourself, and (hopefully) mean it.
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It’s interesting how many people talk to me about time management strategies when really what they need to talk about is goal decluttering activities. It’s usually not about fitting more in.
It’s about doing the rights things and being present and engaged for those things.
Some of us manage to do a million things a day and be present for all of them. I’m not one of those people.
Are you? 🤔
I find I need to do less and have more white space in my life if I’m to be present for the things I do. And really life is just the sum of the moments we spend doing the things we’re doing. 🧡💙
today, try less.
Paul
PS. Check this out (from four thousand weeks), the stuff in orange made me watery eyed. It’s worth reading.
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"We're perfectionists trying to max the margins and we forget that it's on the margin." Said one lawyer during an interview.
"I'm at 95%," he continued, "and I'm trying to get to 98%, and I keep forgetting that I'm agonizing over just 3%."
It's so true.
I find that perspective helps. Take a step back, assess the whole picture. Don't give up your quest for that next 3%, but be make sure you're coming from a spot of gratitude for the 95% you already have.
Why wait for thanksgiving? Let's take this random Thursday in September to remember what we're grateful for.
I'm grateful for my family, for my clients, for my health, and for you. Thanks for being you.
What about you?
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"The worst thing you can do is to do great things."
🤔
Someone said this to me in one of my interviews for the Happy Lawyer. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
I remember noticing as a junior lawyer that the one true reward for good work was more work. At some point we have enough work. Then we have more than enough work. Then we have way too much work.
😬
But of course, we have built an identity for ourselves as someone who does good work.
Great work even.
🌟
So even though we know we already have way too much work, we still do our best to do good/great work. It's a cycle that's really hard to break out of.
The statement starts to make a lot more sense doesn't it? From the perspective of someone who only wants to put out great work and who doesn't yet know how to turn down work, then maybe it's actually true - that the worst thing you can do is to do great things.
Of course, doing great things is pretty damn satisfying. 😊 Are we sure we want to stop?
🤔
There's another option - setting boundaries.
It's not always easy, but taking a look at what boundaries you're setting (and not setting) is always worth it. I've noticed when working with people that there are often places where they could be drawing boundaries (or not) that they're not even aware of. So awareness is the first step.
Then with a full picture, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to do great work or not.
Personally, I vote yes.
...
I just wrote and reread this. Interestingly, it comes off as a bit preachier than a lot of my stuff where I'm more curious and less sure of the answer. I guess that's because the more lawyers I talk to, the more I see happy lawyers doing great work. I just really think that doing great work is a part of being happy for people like us.
I could be wrong. But I don't think so. 😁🤷♂️
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When I decided I was going to leave law, I knew that I had to commit to the entire package. I couldn't just commit to leaving, maintain the status quo, and hope that everything would go the way I wanted it to.
Instead, I spent some time sitting down and imagining what the Paul who had the courage to leave law would actually look like. How would he live, what would he do ....
What would he believe?
The first thing that popped up was that I knew I wanted to be giving back. Not just to anyone either. I had a pretty rough go in school, and so I wanted to be talking with school-age kids. I wasn't sure what I wanted it to look like, I just knew that that was the right direction.
Next thing I know I'm connected with Mentoring Junior Kids Organization (MJKO) and I'm speaking with the kids during summer camp. And man, were my expectations exceeded.
MJKO is a youth charity out of Parkdale which uses leadership (and sometimes boxing 🥊) to promote positive and healthy lifestyle choices for kids here.
The kids were engaged. They asked questions. They challenged me. They were full of life. 💙🧡
My favourite question was the one about eating raw eggs up top. But they also wanted to know about stress, studying, and doing taxes. 💲 Full of life indeed.
So, two questions for you:
-
What's one piece of advice you'd love to give to your school-age self?
-
What's one place in your life where you've committed but not to the entire package
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I hate consumerism. 😠 I do. I hate that we buy stuff because we think it will make us happy. I hate that we buy stuff to keep up with others. I hate that we buy stuff just because we think we SHOULD have it. I hate that this stuff (and the entire industry that supports our the stuff cycle) creates garbage everywhere and hurts our earth. Most of all, I hate that it's needless.
Phew. 😅 Sorta nice to get that off my chest.
You'd think then that I hate stuff, right?
Truthfully, I want to.
But I find that I don't. I like stuff. 🤔
Like, a lot (in some cases). I have a not insignificant collection of comic books (there's even six series of French comic books 😬😅). I have a massive collection of warhammer miniatures. My wife and I have 5 bikes between us. I like purchasing new clothes.
So I still buy stuff. In fact, I like buying stuff.
After all, money has no intrinsic value. Its value is in what it buys you. Whether that's stuff you're buying, or whether it's food or experiences, or whether you're saving or investing it (which I view as buying yourself security and stability).
So .... how does that make sense? How can I hate consumerism and still like stuff?
Truthfully, I don't know yet.
I think it's tied into the my appreciation of the ENTIRE equation. Zoom out and look at your purchase. What are you buying? What value does it (actually) provide you? What is the cost of what you are buying? Not just the money, but what did it cost you to earn that money? And what's the systemic environmental and societal costs of buying what you're buying. If the equation still makes sense after you zoom out and look at it, go ahead!
AND ... and this is a big 'and', ... I think that your relationship with stuff is tied closely with your happiness.
I think that those who are able to zoom out and assess why they're buying what they're buying, and then spend money in places that will move the needle for them, well those people are generally happier. And those of us who buy stuff because they think it'll make them happy. Well, those people are less happy.
I remember listening to the minimalists (the guys at https://www.theminimalists.com/) talking about how minimalists still have stuff. They've just assessed each of their things and decided to keep it. Sort of like what you're left with after you "marie kondo" your things, though that's a discussion for another day.
What about you? Do you have any debates where you seem to find yourself on both sides of the debate and you're not quite sure how to reconcile it yet?
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Big change is afoot. 👣 Today, I'm a lawyer. Tomorrow, I'm a lawyer. In two days, I become a recovering lawyer.
I'm sure you got it, but just in case I'll spell it out:
- Tomorrow is my last day as a lawyer. 😲
To many people, this is surprising. Not because I'm leaving law, but because they'd thought I'd already left. 🤷♂️
I hadn't.
I am now.
One of the gifts and the curses of my line of work, is that it's really hard to do the work (biz) without doing the work (internally). You can't just put down your head and soldier on. I've tried to do that, and I've burnt out. More than once.
As you do the (internal) work, things become apparent. Such as when you're living out of alignment. Sometimes the alignment issues fix themself. Sometimes they get worse. It's said that burnout taps you on the shoulder a thousand times before it punches you in the face, gives you a concussion, and pees in your cereal. 😐 Seriously, lots of people say this.
This is a journey 10 years in the making. I was a second year lawyer thinking: "I don't think law is for me." I didn't ignore the truth, I just tried to fix it in different ways. I moved from private practice to in-house. Then I moved from the private sector to the public sector.
Life got better, but that truth didn't go away. If anything, life being better made it harder to leave. Scarier. I worked with great people. What we did mattered.
But the truth was still there: Being a lawyer wasn't the highest or best use of my time or my energy.
I didn't leave. It was too scary.
I was doing some future-self visualizations recently, and some of them have been life-changing. In all of them, my future-self was not a lawyer. So then the question of "whether" became a question of "when".
Why not now?
It's not now because I've figured it all out. In many ways, I feel like I know less than I did when I started. It's not now because I've built up the business to cruising speed. This is still requiring a leap of faith. It's not now because I'm not scared. I am.
It's now because I'm ready. Because I see there's nothing else to wait for that I don't already have.
🧡💙
I was cleaning out my office yesterday and found a faded post-it note that I'd put there years ago. It's a quote from Oscar Wilde:
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
I used to have all sorts of post-it notes on my desk. It's interesting that that's the only one that survived the earlier purges, as if I hadn't quite been ready to get rid of it. As though it still had something to teach me. 👨🏫
When I first read that quote years ago, it really affected me. I became melancholic. What was I doing? I was afraid. Waiting to earn a bit more before leaving (retiring?) and living my truth. Wilde was right. I couldn't buy back this time.
Yesterday when I saw the note, it brought a sense of peace. Probably because I'm now content with my present, and grateful to my past for having brought me here. 🙏🙏
It's also interesting how faded it is now, as if it knew that my need for it was done.
Ultimately, this is really a story about courage.
Am I special? I guess so. But not any more so than you.
This is a story about one among us having the courage to live their truth. Today, that's me.
I hope you're already living your truth. Using your gifts, living your values, surrounded by those you love. If you're not - I want you to know that you can do it too. It'll be scary, but you can do it too.
This doesn't mean you need to leave your work/profession/marriage. If the happy lawyer project has taught me anything, it's that the "best life" comes in lots of shapes and sizes. Maybe just focus first on what's in alignment for you and what isn't, and see what the self-awareness stirs up inside you.
And know that we’ll be there to walk this path with you.
Until next time, dream big and live bigger.
With love,
- Paul.
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From the beginning, there was one big question mark in my plan for the Happy Lawyer Book. I was pretty confident in my ability to get interviews, glean data, find patterns, and create a model. I was also pretty confident in my ability to use the model to deliver transformations and eventually write the book based on those transformations.
But what I wasn’t totally sure about was how to TEST the model to figure out what is working and what isn’t working.
🤔
I’ve thought about it a lot and landed on this as the best approach:
-
Detailed Open-Ended Sessions With Participants. Schedule sessions with the participating lawyers and ask open ended questions.
- Trust that they know what’s working (and not working) for them.
- And if they don’t know what’s working, trust that we can figure it out together (that I’m perceptive enough and my intuition is honed enough that together we’ll be able to isolate the pieces and tweak what’s not working and retain what is).
-
Standardized Assessment. Create a standardized set of questions that I can send to participants before and after participating so that we can look at what’s changed and see what sort of progress has been made.
-
Additionally, I could disseminate it even more widely to get a broader knowledge-base and picture of the industry.
The idea of this Standardized Assessment is particularly seductive. We all love hard and fast data, and what could be more hard and fast than numbers? X% of participants improved their happiness by Y%. Great! 🙌 Except …
… how do you measure happiness?
Well, it’s not that simple. In fact, you can read all about our efforts here: the rationale behind the construction of The Happy Lawyer Happiness Assessment.
The bottom line though is that after much effort, we have a standardized assessment:
Take the Happy Lawyer Happiness Assessment
Is there a control group?One discussion I’ve had is around whether there will be a control group.
A control group is a group of participants in a study who will not receive the intervention so that they can be compared with participants who do receive the intervention, so that the efficacy of the intervention can be assessed. This will hopefully account for the placebo effect (although I’d note that the placebo effect is not always bad).
Bottom line - there is no control group for this project.
Truthfully, I’m not even sure how a control group would be structured here. It certainly couldn’t be a blind group (everyone would know whether they were receiving the intervention or not). Maybe the control group is just the general population.
In fact, that’s one of the big arguments in favour of having a standardized assessment. I can’t imagine that it will give us better information about what’s working and what isn’t (though obviously I could be wrong on that), but (if it becomes widely taken) it could possibly become a baseline to measure the results of the intervention against.
In a way, the public who take the assessment but don’t participate in the Transformation Circle could be considered a control group.
One last point - I’m ready for this project to live or die by the results that participants receive. From the beginning I’ve stated that I want this to be a practical, usable, method that will get people happier.
If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
And either way we’ll keep refining until it’s as consistent as possible and as fast as practicable.
The AssessmentHave you taken the assessment? If not, take it now. It’s even got a button for if you’re not a lawyer so that non-lawyers can participate without messing up the lawyer-specific data. Have you taken it a while ago? Maybe it’s time to take it again and see how your answers have changed.
Take the Happy Lawyer Happiness Assessment
Finally, once again, you can check out the rationale between the questions and the scoring here:
The Rationale Behind the Assessment
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I feel a little sheepish 🐑 saying this, but part of me regrets last week's post. The one where I said that I want it to hurt for you so that you're not stuck in no-man's land. That's not really part of my message and so it wasn't sitting easy with me.
And yet, there was a kernel of truth in it. 🍿 A kernel that made me uncomfortable.
So I sat with it.
And I realized that what I shared last week was incomplete thinking (which I guess is bound to happen if you're continually posting and continually thinking - and I will never stop thinking). For me to say that hurting enough makes you change is only part of the story.
🤔 What's the rest of the story?
Well, we're stuck whenever whatever force is keeping us in place is stronger than whatever force is trying to move us. And since we all love math (you do, don't you? 🤓), we can put it into this neat formula:
STUCK is when IMPETUS < RESISTANCE
I realized that Impetus is broadly made up of two things: 1) our desire for something different, and 2) trying to avoid pain. I instinctively understood the second part (I've lived it so much 😬😂), which is why I said I hope the pain hurts enough so you want to change.
But we can dig deeper.
Because our Resistance can actually be broken down further to two things: fear and inertia. We don't change because we're afraid of it, and sometimes we're not afraid we're just ... inert (not really capable of moving).
So we get UNSTUCK when:
DESIRE + PAIN AVOIDANCE > FEAR + INERTIA
🎤💧
The only way for you to change is for Desire + Pain Avoidance to be greater than your Fear and Inertia. For most of us, Desire is not enough to get over Fear by itself. So that's why Pain Avoidance (and therefore Pain) can really help.
I just want you to live your desire. 🧡
But Pain hurts, and if we can avoid the need for pain (and pain avoidance) by leaning into Desire, all the better. And, of course, we could also lean into reducing fear and inertia. 🤔🤓 That could work too...
For a lot of people their Fear and their Inertia is a function of their standards and the people they hang around with.
Want to change?
One great way is to surround yourself with others who want to change and who want that for you. To surround yourself with the right people who normalize your desire, help reduce your fear, and eliminate your inertia.
Coincidentally enough, the Happy Lawyer Transformation Circle is starting soon... 😁😊
Honestly, I didn't know the rabbit hole 🐇 would lead here when I started down it. I was just trying to figure out what was bugging me about last week's post.
But I guess if it seems like all roads like to Rome, maybe that's because they do.
Dream big, live bigger, and shine on.
Paul
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"I'm not a believer," she said in a resigned voice. She was a successful partner at her firm - I was interviewing her for The Happy Lawyer Book Project. And me? I was confused.
"In what?" I asked.
She sighed before continuing. "I don't believe I can be happier in law. If you said I'd have to leave, I'd believe you. But I don't think I can be happy here."
Does this resonate? I know it does with me.
I've been there. 😔
Where you look around and you see other lawyers that are happy and you wonder what they have that you don't, or what you have that they don't. Is it a blessing? 😇 Is it a curse? 😈
Well here's my unpopular opinion - I think that this mindset of hers is a blessing AS LONG AS IT HURTS ENOUGH.
Woof. 🐶 That feels weird to write.
The caveat is that it needs to hurt enough to push you out of no-man's land. I heard Tony Robbins once describe no-man's land as the place where life isn't that great, but it's not painful enough to motivate you to make any changes. To me (if you stretch it out over a life-time), it sounds like hell. 😈
So yeah, I want it to hurt. 😬😬
But I'm no masochist. I just don't want you living your life in no-man's land. That's a waste of all of the light inside of you. Light that deserves to BLAZE. 🔥🔥🔥 And working at a place where you're not happy (when you're clearly good enough to succeed both there and elsewhere) feels like a waste of all of that light.
According to IFS, there are no bad parts. That means every part of you wants the best for you. So this partner who told me she wasn't a believer, there was a part of her making her feel that way. And that part of her wants the best for her and doesn't see her getting that right now. And this part has decided that the best way to do that is to make her feel sad/disgruntled/unhappy (maybe it doesn't know what else to do 🤷♀️).
So if you're feeling shitty right now, send some love to that part of you that's making you feel shitty. YOU deserve that love. It deserves that love. 💙🧡💙🧡
It just wants the best for you.
Until next time - dream big, live bigger, and send some love to all the parts of you. They deserve it. And they probably need it.
Paul
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Last week, for the first time in my memory, I experienced true, unconditional, self-love.
I was chatting with an entrepreneur friend of mine, helping her work through some internal obstacles. She was clearly very self-aware and in touch with herself, so halfway through the call I invited us to go inside and just sit with the truth inside of us. I decided to do the same. 🙌 After all, I've been on a journey to be more content, peaceful, grateful and aligned (or, in my words, happy) - why waste this opportunity?
Well, you've probably seen that I've been doing some future-self meditations lately, so naturally my future self popped into my head. I asked him: "what are my next steps?"
He raised his eyebrows at me (in that "really?" look) and smiled.
"You know."
🤔
Huh? This was supposed to be my future self, why was he giving me sass? I decided to ignore it and ask again. "What are my next steps?"
"You know what they are. You've known since last week. You told your buddies Kosta and Chris that you would do this meditation every day until you got clarity on your next step. You've claimed it, aloud, in front of others."
😳😳😢
I felt shame. He was right. I may not have known the (next) next steps, but I was pretty sure I knew how to find out.
And I hadn't.
Further, what did this mean for me? For f###'s sake, I'm a coach. If I can't do the work I know is in front of me, what right do I have to coach others? And (possibly even scarier) am I doomed for this forever?
As if he could hear my thoughts (of course he could, he was in my head), he responded, "Don't worry about it, you're here now."
"But..." I started.
"You're here now." He touched my cheek and smiled. There was not a single iota of judgment. Instead, it was full of such tenderness and gentleness. Such acceptance. Such love. I felt peace. And I knew that, even were I not there in that moment, and had instead come next week, or next month, or next year, he still would have held me in the same gentle way. I got tears in my eyes and nearly broke down in tears on the call with my friend.
This was it.
True, unconditional love.
🧡💙🧡💙
What does this mean about parents? Partners? Children? Have they not loved me unconditionally? Honestly, I don't know. I will say that I've never experienced anything like this. This was 100% pure, nothing other than love. No hope that I obey, no desire that I pitch in, no narrative that it meant something about them.
This was pure. Pure love.
And it was mind-blowing.
AND it was what I needed to recommit.
This is life-changing as long as I let it be. So that's my commitment to myself, to let this love in. Let it seep through me. Infuse my parenting, my relationship, my coaching. And infuse my life, so that I spread love to others and help them shine.
Dream big, live bigger, and love on.
Paul
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As The Happy Lawyer Project grows, I thought it would be helpful to get all the articles in one place.
The main two are these:
- The major patterns observed among Happy Lawyers and Miserable Lawyers and
- Which caused me to create The Happy Lawyer Happiness Model - How Happiness Works for Lawyers (which contains the ingredients and recipe for becoming a happier lawyer).
And supporting or ancillary articles:
- the 1 thing practically every happy lawyer said
-
the things that happy + unhappy lawyers have in common
- Part 2 of things in common here
- whether happy lawyers use their gifts more often,
- whether lawyers need to suffer before being happy, and
- the definition of happiness I'll be using for the book.
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My happy place.
What Actually IS Happiness?I don’t know how to say this 😬 - there’s a conversation I’ve been avoiding. Maybe I’m afraid of not knowing the answer. Maybe I’m afraid that there is no answer. But I think it’s probably about time we tackled it…
… What the hell does happiness mean anyway?
It’s the reason I’m so drawn to the project. All my life, I’ve wanted to be happy. I’ve wanted to love what I do so that I never work another day.
And I think that’s one of the reasons that the “happy lawyer” project is getting such traction. A lot of us want to be happy. “Happy” is such a charged term for us and for our society. I think it probably has a different (and important) definition for each person who thinks about it.
But we still need to do our best to define it, since we need to know what it is to move towards it. Let’s start with Merriam-Webster which defines ‘happiness’ as:
- a state of well-being and contentment
- a pleasurable or satisfying experiences
😁😊
It’s this first definition that resonates most with me. Personally, I don’t expect to just jump from pleasurable/satisfying experience to pleasurable/satisfying experience. I think it’s impossible in life to have only pleasurable or satisfying experiences (though I certainly still want them - hence the photo I've included of me in my happy place).
When I say “I want to be happy”, I think I’m saying:
I want to be in a state of well-being and be content with my life and I want my life to contain all the foundational elements that supports those two simple concepts. That means I’m looking for fulfillment, a sense that I matter and that my work matters, confidence in who I am and what I do, meaningful and deep relationships, belonging, and community.
A lot of that describes my life and my satisfaction with my life. So is it JUST what’s going on in your life that matters for happiness?
I don’t think so.
Both definitions require a certain emotional state. The first requires you feel content. The second requires you feel pleasure or satisfaction.
Is this the definition of Happy you’ll use for the Happy Lawyer?Sort of.
I want YOU to be happy, and I don't expect your definition of happy to mirror mine.
I’m not looking for people to run around being little clones of me. 👨🏻🤝👨🏻👨🏻🤝👨🏻👨🏻🤝👨🏻 You don’t need to aim for my goals. I’d much rather you aim for yours.
Although it feels scary to create a program or path where each person will have a different outcome, I think it’s important. So I’ll take the risk on that.
So, what are your goals? What’s your definition of happy?
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Have you ever wondered what made happy people happy? And what about what made unhappy people unhappy? Truth be told, I’ve wondered it a lot. I’ve had good reason to. Over the 12 years of my legal career, I’ve spent quite a lot of time unhappy. I didn’t want this to be my life.
So I committed to coaching and to Leader Rising. I’ve been making progress.
But some time in 2021, I had a big idea. I was going to write a book. A book that would help lawyers everywhere get happier, so that they didn’t need to go down my deep rabbit hole to get there.
And thus was born my dream of the Happy Lawyer book.
As of the time of writing, I have completed 75 interviews of lawyers - happy lawyers, miserable lawyers, and lawyers in between. Some have been in private practice, others in-house, and a few had left law altogether.
I pulled out patterns from among the happy lawyers and miserable lawyers.
And I’ve taken these patterns, mixed them with my ~500 hours of coaching clients, as well as with my own life experience and the wisdom I’ve taken from many of the top personal improvement books, and I’ve created …. (I hope you’re doing a drumroll over there 🥁):
The Happy Lawyer Happiness Model.
Want to learn more about it? Give this episode a listen.
A snippet from my journal. If I’d known this was going to be such a major piece, I’d have at least started on a fresh page.
5 ways to kiss like a pro. 💋 10 signs you’re in a great long term relationship. 7 habits of highly effective people. 8 ways to blast your biceps. 💪 I’ve read articles on all of these topics and many more over the years.
Why are these lists so damn compelling?
Some might say they want to know what to do better in order to improve and be [a better kisser / more jacked / more effective / etc.].
But me?
There’s one thing that I’ve done EVERY time I’ve read one of these lists:
- I’ve compared myself to each bullet to see how I rank.
I think there’s something hardwired in us that wants to figure out where we stand. Although it can certainly be bad (have you heard the expression “comparison is the thief of joy”?), I think it may just be the way we are as a social species.
😑
You may have a sense of how happy you are. But where do you stand on the patterns of happy lawyers and of miserable lawyers? Well, I finally have a way for you to find out because I’ve distilled what I think are the major patterns that happy lawyers and miserable lawyers have.
The PatternsBut first, my process to getting to these patterns:
- I interviewed happy lawyers and miserable lawyers (and a few former lawyers). I reached out to some people to ask to interview them, and others volunteered to be interviewed (as of writing this article, I have completed 75 interviews).
- Then, starting from when I had around 50-60 interviews, I started reviewing the interviews and creating a big list of the main points from each interview. In particular, the things that were going well and things that weren’t going well (for both happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers). This list was rather large and had both diamond and dirt in it.
- Then I took that big list and narrowed it down to a list of major patterns.
Without further ado:
The Major Patterns Happy Lawyers* lack of financial instability * a lot of schedule flexibility * a tribe, friends, support * strong alignment (priorities, values, gifts, reality) * their life met/exceeded their expectations * strong self-awareness * generally active self-compassion * intentionality with their actions and moves (particularly big ones) * gratitude/appreciation * they took action (even small action) towards their goals * well-rounded confidence and trust * self-care (sleep, health, … wealth?) * letting go of things they couldn’t control and that didn’t serve them * feeling in choice * good communicators * had a good amount of growth and challenge
Unhappy Lawyers* constantly on call * not enough separation between work and life * worry / anxiety / fear / self-criticism / imposter-syndrome * misalignment (values, gifts, priorities) * lack of “required” clarity * reactivity * grind feels like a GRIND * pressure (internal/external) * social media genius-drain * lack of support / mentoring * feeling stuck * excessively prioritizing work over relationships with spouse and kids and other important personal things * [weakness at setting boundaries and caring too much what others think]
The AnalysisThis is all well and good. But what do these patterns mean?
🤔
I’m not interested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake, I’m interested in practical knowledge that will help us get happier. Maybe once we find the differences between happy and unhappy lawyers, we can find the levers to pull that will drive transformation.
Well, straight off the top there are a few things we can get rid of. Many happy lawyers also feel a lot of pressure and they work hard and they often don’t have a lot of clarity about the future. A number of happy lawyers feel imposter syndrome as well. A lot of happy lawyers are on call a lot of the time, work too much, and don’t really have enough separation between work and life (though it doesn’t seem to drain them as much as it does the unhappy lawyers). Some unhappy lawyers are great communicators. and some of them have good schedule flexibility too.
So that trims the list a bit, but we’re still left with a rather large list. Further, a number of the items in each list are likely correlative (or at least not strongly causative). For instance:
- are happy lawyers happy because they trust that things will work out? Or do they trust that things will work out because they’re happy?
- are some unhappy lawyers unhappy because they drain their genius through excessive use of social media and doom scrolling? Or do they doomscroll and use social media too much because they’re unhappy? (although … maybe it’s both?)
The Starting PointI was stuck with this list for a while until I realized that some of the patterns were actually opposites:
- Happy lawyers had friends, support, and a community, and unhappy lawyers felt a lack of support and mentoring.
- Happy lawyers were intentional about their lives and unhappy lawyers just tended to go with the flow and react to circumstances rather than have a plan.
- Happy lawyers took action whereas unhappy lawyers felt stuck (or trapped) and didn’t take action.
- Happy lawyers generally had created a life where their reality was aligned with their values and priorities and where they got to use their gifts. In contrast, many unhappy lawyers weren’t using their gifts and they felt out of alignment and like they ignored their priorities.
- Last, but definitely not least, happy lawyers spent time on their inner game. They were self-aware, they did their best to be self-compassionate and forgiving with themselves, and they spent time on self-care and filling their bucket. Some unhappy lawyers also did a number of these things, but they had other issues that overshadowed them - their worry, anxiety and fear was often running a bit out of control.
This actually feels like a really good starting point to me. If we distill those 5 bullet points even further, we land on the following levers. I was starting to think that if a lawyer could:
- upgrade friends/community/support
- become more aware (especially of their alignment (values/priorities/gifts)) and take intentional action
- become more self-compassionate
… Well, they’d probably be happier!!
But of course, that’s not the whole story. There are a few other things I still want to spend some time thinking about:
- Happy lawyers feeling gratitude and appreciation and whether that’s a cause OR an effect of being happy.
- Happy lawyers having expectations for their life that are met or exceeded. This one in particular pokes at me. Can you become happier by lowering your expectations? Would you want to? Do unhappy lawyers have excessively high expectations?
- The link between (and effect on happiness of) feeling stuck, feeling in choice, and letting go of things you can’t control (including the need to be perfect).
- How much of the unhappiness is driven by the drain that strong negative emotions in a person exert on that person’s happiness (particularly those emotions that self-perpetuate or are stuck in a feedback loop). And, conversely, what effect strong self-compassion (or, heaven forbid, self-love) would have on it.
- And finally, whether I could distill all of this even more to fewer elements - it seems to me that a common thread of a lot of things are the stories we tell ourselves about how our life needs to be going (and who we need to be).
So still a lot of questions, but we’re starting to get closer to some answers.
I’ve got a draft model that explains happiness for lawyers that I’ll walk you through next week.
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I fell down a short youtube rabbithole yesterday 🐇, and boy was I glad I did. I fell right into this TedX talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbxinUJcLGg
If you've got yourself 16 minutes, give it a watch. Man, that was powerful.
You see, that speaker is ugly. I feel a bit weird saying it, but it's true. He's ugly enough that he wrote a book called "Ugly". And yet for all that ugliness, as he bares his soul a beauty shines through. 💙💙
He talks about owning his face. And about how hard it was for him to get there.
And about how the fact that he's ugly has allowed him to own his own face perhaps more easily than any of us get to own ours.
Let that sink in a moment.
🤔
Because he had less to lose, he was more able to make the journey and embrace who he was.
The same thing happened in Dante's Inferno (or at least, the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle take on it). 😈 Those who were in Purgatory (which was by all accounts decent) had the hardest time descending through hell to escape to heaven because they had so much to lose. By contrast, those wading in boiling blood in the fifth circle of hell had less to lose and found it easier to leave and take the risk.
I've seen this in lawyers too. Unhappy lawyers often find it harder to own their own truth because on the outside they often have lives that others would love to have. I want to say that again: Because they have lives others would love to have, they often find it harder to own their own truth.
It's hard to own your own truth when things are "objectively" good but they don't feel subjectively good or "right" for you. When you take a risk and you're worried others will judge you for "throwing away" something great. 🤷♂️ But is it truly great if it doesn't feel so?
Part of the problem is that we (in many cases rightly) tell ourselves that most of what we have is good, and we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So how do you move past this stuckness? 🚦
The first step is awareness. What's causing the disconnect between what's objectively good and what you feel?
Sometimes it's the entire life to blame. Sometimes it's just one part of it. The pressure you put on yourself. The worry you have about how things will turn out. The story you tell yourself about where you're going and who you are.
And also the awareness of how the status quo serves you. In many cases, if it didn't, you likely would have changed it already.
Once you've become aware (of what's going on, of the costs, the benefits, etc), the next steps usually become apparent.
As they say, this life is both far too long, and far too short, to be doing something you don't want to do.
Shine on.
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I cried this morning. I'm not too much of a man to admit it (although maybe I'm just enough man to admit it?). I was doing a future-self meditation. I met my future self. And it was almost like I was meeting the ghost of Christmas-Future. 🎄 Except unlike that story, this ghost didn't show me a bleak future that would happen if I didn't change my ways.
This ghost showed me the future I'm building, especially as I lean into my own gifts, my own purpose, and my own willpower to be intentional with the life I'm building.
I saw my kids; fighting, laughing, and loving each other.
And I wept.
😭
I was just overcome with emotion. I sobbed. And sobbed. It was beautiful.
I also had a chance to sit down with my future self. I asked him what his biggest challenge was, and I asked him how he got through it. I asked him what he thought of my HAPPY LAWYER book, and the next steps I should take on it. And I asked him what I needed to do to become him, and what I needed to let go of in order to do that.
Is this a bit woo-woo and weird? Certainly. 🧙♂️ Is there a part of me that feels weird sharing this with you? Certainly.
But I'm doing it anyway. Because the message my future self gave me was that my biggest challenge is caring too much what others think. And it's true, I do. I've been watering myself down since I started doing this (and probably long before). 💦 Diluting myself in the hopes that I'll avoid criticism.
I wonder - if you've been reading my posts/emails for a while, do you think my personality shows through the text? 🤔
I assure you, it's but a fragment of my personality that's been showing through.
And I know from all of my work that to become the person you want to be, you've got to act like the person you want to be. The actions start, and the identity follows. If you're feeling next-level, you can also give yourself permission to feel the way you would feel as if you've already achieved your goal. That will turbo-charge your transformation and your journey, no question.
So this is me. 😊
The full me? Not yet. As much as I have a side that embraces this idea of a future self meditation (and future self-creation), I ALSO have a side that is an inveterate skeptic. And though that side of me is agnostic on whether I care what others think of me, it also knows better than to think that a transformation that deep will occur with a single post.
And yet there is power in commitment. A transformation (however small) takes place when you truly commit. And so here is me committing to myself, and committing to you. Because my future self shared one other thing with me. I asked him what his purpose was in life, and with no hesitation, he said:
To shine and to help others shine.
That's it. I've been working on this for years and it's never been articulated so simply.
I know there's a brilliance inside me waiting to shine, and I know there's a brilliance inside you waiting to shine. We've got so much life inside, what a shame it would be not to live it.
In one of her books, Brené Brown quotes Leonard Cohen who says that there's a crack in everything and that's how the light gets in.
I'm here to tell you that there's a crack in everything, and that's how the light shines out. 🌟
Be you.
Paul
PS. Thanks to my friend Cory (of Mental Gym fame) for hooking me up with the visualization.
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2 (SURPRISING) THINGS THAT 😊 HAPPY LAWYERS AND 😒 UNHAPPY LAWYERS HAVE IN COMMON
"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong. Can you figure out which one it is, before I finish this song?"
Remember that song? 🎶 Let me give you this list and you pick the one thing on here that happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers do NOT share in common (extra points if you hum the song in your head and finish picking before you're done the song):
-
FEELING UNDER PRESSURE
-
WORKING HARD
-
UNCERTAINTY / LACK OF CLARITY
-
REACTING TO LIFE
🤔
Well, I wrote just two days ago that happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers both feel pressure. So you know it's not that one. Let's run through the others quickly.
2. WORKING HARDDo you know that joke about lawyers working too hard? I don't. It was too sad a reality to make jokes about. 😞
I was chatting with an associate yesterday who has a billable target of 1920 hours/year. Assuming you NEVER take vacation, that's 7.7 billed hours per day. Personally, I only billed about 70% of the time I was in the office. So that total actually becomes 11 hours a day.
Toss in a 45 minute commute each way and you leave home at 7.30am in the morning every day just to get home at 8pm. Monday to Friday, every single week, without a single vacation day all year. 😳
I know at least one lawyer is reading this and thinking - hey, at least he got his weekends! 🙌
😬
It can really drain you to work that hard. And yet, some happy lawyers work that hard too. And some unhappy lawyers work a lot less.
Turns out working hard (by itself at least), seems to be independent of whether you're a happy lawyer.
3. UNCERTAINTY / LACK OF CLARITYA significant number of the unhappy lawyers I spoke to just wanted clarity in their lives. Was law for them? Was this firm for them? Should they move somewhere else? The uncertainty ate at them. When I asked about what they wanted most for themselves over the next year, they said:
"Clarity. I want clarity. Over what I'm doing with my career/job."
Got it. Uncertainty is tough and can undermine your happiness. So to make lawyers happy, I need to help them get clarity.
Except wait. A lot of the happy lawyers didn't have certainty either. They didn't have clarity about the future.
But it didn't bother them. 🤔
They seemed content to live in the present. They had some measure of trust and optimism for the future and believed that, regardless of how it worked out, it would work out for the best.
Okay, so uncertainty and an absence of clarity isn't really causative of unhappiness in lawyers either.
—-
So? Did you guess the fourth option? If so, give yourself a gold star!
Turns out that happy lawyers reacted less to life and were far more intentional (even if it was only on a smaller scale), you're right. But we'll get into that next week.
Do you find anything surprising about the above?
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Sure, I'm looking for differences. I'm trying to figure out how to tell apart a happy lawyer and an unhappy lawyer on the front end, to see what causes them to be different. Why? So that we can lean on those differences. Want to be less unhappy? Do X. Want to be more happy? Do Y.
By the time I'm done, if you told me that your friend (who's a lawyer) generally did A, B, and C, and looked at the world like D, E, and F, ideally I would able to tell you whether that friend was happy or not.
🤓
So this project will live and die in the differences.
BUT, not everything turns out to be different between happy lawyers and unhappy ones. They do have a few things in common. Things that surprised me. Here is one thing worth highlighting:
1. PRESSURE.
I remember the first interview I had with a lawyer who told me she was under immense pressure. Her voice cracked a bit, she was close to tears, and I thought - "here we go! Something that is making her less happy!" She wasn't alone in talking about the pressure she was under as something that was dragging her down.
BUT the flipside have also been true. I've talked to a number of happy lawyers who've talked about the immense pressure they're under, but they've got a hint of a smile in their voice and a glint in their eye. They're thriving under the pressure.
Thus leading to a current working theory - pressure itself is independent of happiness.
Although pressure may be independent of happiness, it may multiply some of the other factors. You may be confident (a trait I saw in most happy lawyers) or you may worry (a trait I saw in many unhappy lawyers, but that may not actually affect your happiness that much until you ramp up the pressure, which exacerbates the effect that confidence/unconfidence/worry has on your happiness.
Interestingly, I think you can both be confident and worry at the same time. Most of the happy lawyers were unconfident about at least one thing (and vice versa for the unhappy lawyers re confidence). So it isn't on a single spectrum, it's on multiple ones.
I've got two other commonalities to highlight before I start moving into some of the key differences I've spotted so far between happy lawyers and unhappy ones. Maybe we'll do that tomorrow.
What do you think? Is pressure generally good in your life? Generally bad? Or sort of ... both?
And more importantly, is "unconfidence" a word?
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One of the things that's surprised me most through 63 interviews (of lawyers for my book The Happy Lawyer) is the importance of schedule autonomy. 📆 Almost every lawyer who was happy cited the flexibility in their schedule or the control they had over their schedule, as something that was really working for them in their life.
I wouldn't have been surprised to see it frequently, but practically every happy lawyer volunteered it (rather than me specifically asking about it).
Wow. 😲
What is it about setting your own hours and determining when you want to work that really works for people? And how does it work? Does it make them feel more fulfilled? Is it self-determination? 🤔
I've certainly heard about this before. There was some study where some janitors were given cleaning products they had to use, and others were given cleaning products they could pick from. Those that got to pick felt much more satisfaction in their work.
HOWEVER, we're missing a really important point. 👀
What I want to know is this: HOW do we start getting more schedule autonomy in our lives? Is it a question of becoming more senior? Of switching jobs? Of just setting kind (but ruthless) boundaries?
My personal theory (informed highly by Cal Newport's book So Good They Can't Ignore You) is that schedule autonomy is a privilege that you earn by being excellent at what you do (in other words, so good that they can't ignore you). This also tends to come as you become more senior.
Two other points come to mind:
- Setting boundaries is very important (but that that can't come too soon before excellence), and
- Sometimes it may be a question of tradeoffs (forgoing lucrative opportunities etc).
What do you think? How does one get schedule autonomy? How have YOU increased your schedule autonomy?
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One thing that's surprised me a little as I've been interviewing lawyers for my Happy Lawyer book is how different lawyers have approached work/life balance differently. ⚖
For example, when asked about what their life would look like in a year if everything worked out for them that year, many lawyers would talk about getting a better work/life balance. More time with family, less time grinding it at work.
Some of those are angry at it. 😠 "Why do we say "work/life balance" and not "life/work balance"? It's like we're setting ourselves up to fail."
One american lawyer pointed out a big difference after moving from one side of the country to the other "On the east coast, it felt like people lived to work. On the west coast, it feels more like people work to live." Obviously this can't be true all of the time, but is it generally true?
One conversation that particularly stuck with me had the lawyer opining on work/life balance:
"I hate the phrase work/life balance because it DOESN'T EXIST. There is no balance. When I look back, was there enough joy to make it worthwhile? Enough time to do the things I wanted to do?"
And yet so many of don't have enough time. Maybe that's the secret to being a happy lawyer - creating a day with 25 hours in it.
😂😂😭
What do you think? Can balanced be reach between life and work? What is the most important thing to do to get it?
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A HOMETOWN DISCOUNT. What is that in law? 🤔 Most of us are familiar with what that is in sports - the beloved superstar chooses to stay in their hometown earning less money than they could have earned elsewhere. Why? Because in a league with a salary cap, less money spent on your superstar means more money to spend on your other players, and a greater chance to win.
It's a show of loyalty and a commitment to winning that endears the superstar to their fans.
But I've had a few questions lately with partners at firms where the subject of a hometown discount comes up. A hometown discount in law is where you've grown up at a firm (perhaps even summering and articling there), and where you're now a partner, and where some people still see you (and treat you) as if you're the junior you used to be.
"I've seen partners need to go elsewhere in order to be respected as a partner," one said. "I need to respond to that senior partner right away," another said. "Why?" I asked. The response was hometown discount to its core: "I always have, since I was a junior working for him."
What do you think? Have you seen a hometown discount where you work? Is it a celebration of loyalty and commitment like it is in sports? Or is it an example where others' perception of you hasn't grown to keep up with your capabilities and responsibilities?
And most importantly, how do you reset the context (without having to leave where you're at) so that others treat you appropriately?
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We were standing around during Friday drinks, and the senior associate turned to the real estate partner and asked "so, what do YOU think? how much should I spend on a house?" The partner took a sip and then responded "you know it's in my interest for you to spend as much as you can." The two nodded at each other.
I, being a bit dense as well as a bit curious, leaned over into the conversation. "What do you mean? Why do you say that?"
The partner took another sip as if deciding how to answer. "Well," he said finally, "the more he spends," he pointed at the associate, "the more in debt he is, and therefore the less likely he is to leave the firm."
I remember being surprised. And a little refreshed. I like it when people are clear about what's going on, even (especially) when it may not be in everyone's best interests.
Still, it reminds me of something one of the characters said in "The Black Monday Murders" (a comic book by Image). He was a successful banker addressing a group of students and he said (I'm paraphrasing a little):
"Your first million you'll make out of your own hide, with your own blood, sweat, and tears. All of your subsequent millions you'll make out of other people's sacrifice, with their blood, sweat, and tears."
😳😬
To a lot of practicing lawyers at big firms, this is their reality. Others are making money out of their sacrifice.
I've spoken to happy lawyers at big firms, and I've spoken to miserable lawyers at big firms. They've all faced this reality, and for some it doesn't seem to be a big deal, whereas for others it's a hole in the hull of their ship under the waterline. It may not be immediately apparent, but that ship is going to sink.
So what's the difference between them?
I'm not totally sure yet. 🤷♂️
It almost feels like it depends what crowd they land with and run with. Do these people look out for each other? Or does everyone have their elbows up looking to protect their territory and keep others away?
And, I wonder, how does the picture change when the lawyer at question is a people-pleaser to their own detriment?
🤔
Finally, just a note on the partner's response:
I actually think that by calling out his position's bias and then not offering any advice beyond that, that the partner was actually being helpful (provided that the associate could read between the lines). In one response he made sure the associate was aware of a very important consideration and at the same time, (by not specifically endorsing the advice), he discreetly indicated he did not support the advice. Finally, the warning hopefully advised the associate to be cautious of advice he received from any other person (including any partner) who had vested interests.
All that to say that sometimes the answers you're looking for are there if you're willing to read between the lines.
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As I interview lawyers for my book 📘 The Happy Lawyer, one of the things I'm interested in is CONTROL. How much control does each lawyer feel that they have over their life? Does that correlate with how happy they are? ☺
And (perhaps more importantly), if it does correlate, then is it also causative? If so, all we would need to do to increase someone's happiness is to increase their feeling of control?
Although some interesting stuff has been coming up, I'm not quite ready to say I've found an answer quite yet.
Fundamentally to all of this: WHAT IS CONTROL?
In his book Chatter, Ethan Kross talks about our perception of control and he describes control as "the belief that we possess the ability to impact the world in the ways we desire."
He says:
"In order for you to truly feel in control, you have to believe not only that you are capable of exerting your will to influence outcomes but that the world around you, in turn, is an orderly place where any actions you engage in will have their intended effect. Seeing order in the world is comforting because it makes life easier to navigate and more predictable."
So feeling in control requires the belief that:
- You can exert your will and
- The world is orderly and predictable.
I guess that makes sense. 🤔 Feeling the world is predictable but that you can't change a damn thing leaves you helpless. Feeling you can make a difference but you never know if the difference you're making is the one you actually want to make can leave you similarly frustrated. So basically, one without the other and you're still standing on shaky ground.
What do you think?
Did you feel in control in your life before reading this post? Does this framework of control change how you see anything?
And what's your hypothesis on whether a feeling of being in control is correlated with greater happiness?
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I wrote recently about your gifts, and how wasting them tends to make you less happy. I sometimes forget (because I'm so deep into this s###) that other people haven't bothered to think through what their gifts are.
So how do you explain gifts to someone who's never thought about them? Truthfully, I'm not totally sure. I generally find it's easiest to hear people talk, and you listen for when they talk about the parts of their life/job that they're good at. You listen for their tone, sense their energy - it tends to change a bit when they talk about these gifts. It's clear that they draw some satisfaction from these parts.
In other words - it's the intersection of what you're good at, and what you like.
Personally, I happen to think I'm pretty good at drafting a service contract ... BUT I don't quite appreciate it in the same way - it's not, I would say, one of my gifts. On the other hand, I love talking with people. Luckily in my corner of the law, there's a lot of dealing with people, and I get to work with juniors who are only too excited to sink their teeth into a real contract.
But it goes deeper than just dealing with people, I love talking to people about things that matter.
I think that THAT'S one of my gifts.
🎁
Gifts often go to the core of you, overlapping with what makes you fundamentally you. That leads me to believe that most of us have had our gifts for a long time. Potentially, our gifts were always waiting inside of us to be found. I don't think this is technically true, but generally the things we are good at are things that we've been good at for a long time.
And THAT (the gifts are hidden in me waiting to be found) is how a lot of us feel about PASSIONS:
- We must have some passions in us waiting to be found.
And as soon as we find those passions and align our work to them, we'll never work another day in our life.
swoon 💚💙💛💜🧡
I have some long-standing thoughts on the destructiveness of this mindset: https://leaderrising.com/blog/2020/01/08/havent-discovered-your-passion-just-give-up I've seen its destructive work in my own life as well as many clients.
So how should we view PASSIONS instead and how are they different from GIFTS?
I think it works like this:
- you have something you like, and you work at it until you get good. then it's a gift.
- or you have something you're good at, and you work at it until you like it. then it's a gift.
- THEN if you have a gift, and you keep mastering it, you start to like it more.
- at some point, you like it enough that it becomes a passion.
So many of us never make it to the passion stage, and that's okay. Don't guilt yourself over this. Just lean into the stuff you like to do.
Turns out that when you do things that you're good at and you like, life is more pleasant.
What do you think?
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How do lawyers waste their gifts?
Every now and again, I hear something which causes my head to explode 🤯. Something which immediately resonates on a deep level. Well it happened again when I heard this:
"Unused creativity isn't benign. It metastasizes.” -- Brené Brown
It's given me a different framework to look at my own creativity in my life, and how (and if) I express it on any given day or week.
As much as it may be true about creativity, I believe it's also true about your "gifts". 🎁
I'm now 47 interviews deep into my research for my book The Happy Lawyer and one of the strong patterns I've noticed between happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers tends to be in the use of the person's gifts. Basically - do they feel as if they get to use their gifts on a regular basis?
If no, there's some unhappiness (if not outright misery) and, if yes, there's some satisfaction (if not outright contentment).
My gut tells me that this is a causative distinction rather than a correlative distinction. The more you use your gifts, the more satisfied you are. The less you use your gifts, the less satisfied you are.
🎁🤔
A lawyer I spoke to loves to solve complex problems, and feels like he gets that in his practice. But it doesn't need to be tied to the law, a different lawyer I spoke to doesn't care much for the law, but she loves working with people. She's much happier in a managerial role because she gets to deal with people on a regular basis. What others view as a necessary evil of managing a team, she views as one of the best parts of her job.
😊
The opposite is true too. A lawyer who I spoke to who loves to be creative feels as if there's a part of him suffocating without oxygen. A different lawyer (who is collaborative and solutions-focused) finds life so difficult in a zero-sum litigation practice.
😞
This can be true even if you don't know what your gifts are. Some people didn't even think in terms of "gifts". If that's you, I can guarantee you have gifts. We could talk about gifts for hours, but for a start why don't you look at the intersection of what you like and what you're good at.
A positive point here is that the longer you tend to walk your path, the greater your mastery and often the more you tend to like it.
It’s worth considering the following:
- What do you think your gifts are? What do YOU do better (and enjoy more) than the average bear?
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I've now done 42(!!) interviews of lawyers for my book (the Happy Lawyer). That's enough for patterns to emerge - both among the happy lawyers and among the miserable ones.
One thing I've noticed a number of happy lawyers talk about is that they were miserable before. Whether it's the senior partner who sets her own schedule, the junior partner who's built a great team, or the in-house lawyer who left the firm. They're happy now, but there was a period (sometimes a long one) where they weren't happy. 😢 It's pretty common in fact. What's that about?
And more importantly, is it necessary?
🤔
You see, one of the things I tell to everyone before I interview them is that one of my duties will be to separate causal factors from correlative factors. This period of suffering - what is it?
I WANT to believe that it's correlative. That you don't need to have suffered in order to be happy as a lawyer. Maybe prior suffering is actually independent of current happiness - after all, suffering is normal in life from time to time. In that case, maybe the pattern of suffering I've seen so far is just the normal fact that some suffering is inherent in life (Exhibit A - see Buddhism's first noble truth - "life is suffering").
👨🏫
But for those of us who've grown up in the legal practice, there is sometimes an understanding that your first few years (particularly if you're at a big firm) are going to be really hard. I think the view is that we grow a lot through adversity, and it's important for lawyers to actually learn how to practice.
Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the suffering is not tied as much to what the lawyers worked on substantively, but rather HOW they worked on it. How much autonomy was there? Did they have to cancel personal plans? Did their bosses yell at them and expect perfection (you made a typo?!? 😡😡)?
But this piece isn't meant to be an indictment (or even an analysis) of the legal industry. I'm always more interested in things on an individual scale.
If YOU'RE suffering, what can YOU do? ❓❓ MUST you suffer in order to progress?
Certainly there are different strategies to dealing with professional suffering as a lawyer:
- Strategy 1 (Head Down) - grit and bear it. Put your head down and eventually it will pass.
- Strategy 2 (Peace Out) - f### it. Get out of law.
- Strategy 3 (Fix It) - try to change where you're at, and if that doesn't work then change where you're at.
I'm sure there are other strategies, but those are the main ones I've seen so far. When I was coming up through the ranks, strategy 1 (head down) was the one espoused to us. I certainly felt called to try strategy 2 (peace out), though I never did.
So, how much suffering is necessary to become a good lawyer? And how much can we separate that from the suffering inherent in life?
What do you think?
Paul
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Here at Leader Rising, there's nothing special about new years. January 1 is just like any other day. We're always dreaming big and living bigger, so we don't need a calendar to tell us when it's okay to do it.
And yet, something feels a bit different about the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
And so, as the year turned over, I was reflective and made an important decision. I've decided that I will have one resolution for 2022:
- To build my "lottery life".
That's not the life you'd have if you won the lottery. 💲💲🤔
That's the life you lead where you wouldn't really change it much even if you won the lottery.
That's a subtle but important difference.
That life is not predicated on winning the lottery, it's resilient AGAINST winning the lottery. 😳 That life is built on things that feed your soul. For most of us, that's relationships (family, good friends), work (especially "soul-work"), fun, and making a difference (this can (but doesn't need to) intersect with work).
I've thought about this a lot over the years.
My directional set of emails are based on the questions that most helped me build the dream of what I want that life to look like.
Creating that dream is critical. 💙💙
AND the next step is just as important - creating that dream into your reality.
January and February have been crazy, but I’ve grown internally in a way that was necessary. Life circumstances forced me to work on my mood and outlook. That's foundational work for the life I build on top of it.
So, building my lottery life is my resolution for the year.
... AND I'm going to try to do it in the next three months. Wish me luck. 😊
Paul
PS. Those with a sharp memory might remember that despite the first line of this email, I actually quite like new years resolutions.
PPS. If you want to see those directional emails I referenced above, go here and scroll down to #4.
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"What habits aren't really working for you?" I asked. "What habit might you want to try to break?" ❓
My client scratched their head. "What about the habit of procrastination? Does that count?"
🤔
It actually made me pause - IS procrastination actually a habit? For those of us who sometimes struggle with procrastination, I think this deserves a bit of a deeper dive.
We won't talk about my client per se, we'll talk about Adam and Betty (both of which I've been before). Adam procrastinates by cleaning his house and organizing his spice drawer. Betty procrastinates by doom-scrolling on twitter. Neither of them get their work done when they want to do it (though Adam has a clean house at least), and they both scramble to get everything done at (or after) the last minute.
Per Atomic Habits, ALL habits have four components - the cue, craving, response, reward. For example, you see a cookie on the counter (cue), you want to eat it (craving), you eat it (response), it tastes so damn good when you bite into it (reward). 🍪🍪🍪 Note that there may be negative consequences (cookies can make you fat), but the short term rewards tend to outweigh long term rewards.
Another common example is when you heard a phone alert (cue), you need to check your phone (craving), you check your phone (response), you experience relief when you see your boss hasn't assigned you more TPS reports (reward). 😌 Even if your boss had assigned you a TPS report, at least you'd no longer be sitting with the uncertainty that you'd been assigned work and didn't know about it (which is a reward).
So ... 🤔 ... is procrastination a habit?
My gut wants to say yes, but we didn't come all this way to rely on my gut (besides, it's a bit off from that cookie 🍪🤤 I ate above). So let's take a closer look.
Our current understanding is that procrastination is about emotions, not time management. So if procrastination is about emotions, it would make sense then that the CUE is an emotion or range of emotions.
An emotion that we don't want.
That emotion gives rise to a CRAVING to do (or not do) something that will make the emotion go away or lessen. If we give in to the action, that's our RESPONSE. And then the REWARD is that the emotion is gone or lessened. Note that we still feel that reward even if the long-term consequences are negative (like the cookie).
But what emotion are we running from? What actions do we run toward or away from? Although this is totally specific to the person, I think there are some examples that might resonate:
- Adam is feeling anxious about the memo he needs to write. It's for a demanding partner and he knows that no matter what it's won't be good enough and he's going to be yelled at. He really doesn't want to be yelled at. Maybe he tells himself that he would be able to concentrate fully if he cleaned the house 🧽🧹🏠, which would allow him to do a perfect job (and avoid the yelling). Maybe that's true, but more likely is that he's waiting for the fire under his ass of knowing the memo is due immediately in order to sharpen his focus.
- Betty is sad because she thought she'd be doing more with her life than doing research to provide advice that the client is just going to ignore anyway. What's the point of even doing the work? So she has a craving to check her phone because anything is more interesting than the jurisdictional analysis involved in asserting claims to unregistered trademarks. 😴 The reward is that she finds that Kanye has tweeted some shade at Eminem, which is way more interesting than jurisdictional analysis. Note that this is true even if the doom-scrolling makes her feel shitty later.
Okay, so procrastination looks like a habit, or lots of different habits unique to each person. So what do we do about it?
Well, you're unlikely to change the CUE or CRAVING. It's unlikely your work is going to transform overnight and you probably still won't want to do it tomorrow.
What about the REWARD? You could do some work here. James Clear in Atomic Habits says you could money to a friend to hold in trust, and they donate (or keep) the money if you slip on your habit. It changes the cost/benefit analysis. You could also reward yourself for doing the right thing, so now you look forward to doing the thing that's good for you.
I've found for me that the easiest link in the chain to break is the RESPONSE. Sure I'll still want to do something else, but I make it so that it's really hard to do so. Social media apps are deleted off the phone. And I've logged out of all of them on the browser, so I need to make the positive act of logging in. Sometimes I even close the browser to add one more speedbump between the craving and the response. I've even made a rule that I have to do 10 pushups before I check facebook. Sure I can still veg out on FB, but only if I overcome the hurdle first (and at least I get some exercise).
What works is going to be what works for you given your own particular emotions, preferences and procrastination strategies and reasonings.
It won't always feel easy, but it does get easier over time.
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Ever hear that hockey player interview? Where the player who scored the winning goal says: "It was a team win. I just focused on going out there, doing my part, and giving it 110%. I couldn't be happier for the boys. We worked hard and it paid off tonight."
Of course you've heard it, because that's what most of the post-game interviews sound like.
But how well does that approach work in real life? 🤔
Do you ever have those days where you expect a lot of yourself? Where you expect to skate hard and give it 110%? Where you expect the win to follow?
I've had those days. Had one a few days ago. 😔
That 110% standard doesn't seem to work that well for real life. You see, it's hard to be that hockey player throughout the entire day. That hockey player probably only plays 22 minutes of that game. So not only is 22 minutes a lot less than a full day, it's also broken up by 38 minutes of play time sitting on the bench, not to mention breaks between periods.
So how are we supposed to run an entire day at 110% when even the pro is only doing 22 minutes? And most of us expect that of ourselves day after day. How the f### are we supposed to run our entire life like that?
Well, tell it to my subconscious, because it still expects me to put in that shift. Again and again. 🤷♂️
It usually doesn't go well.
There's a quote from Pema Chödrön that gives me a lot of comfort on days like that. It's a variation on the First Noble Truth of Buddhism which I learned in high school, which was "Life is suffering."
You see, I've always had a problem with "life is suffering." Not only does it feel bleak, I also don't think it's true. There's so much more to life! Playing with my boys when they're laughing and in a good mood is not suffering, it's glorious. Eating a hot, fresh slice of pizza is not suffering, it's sublime. Watching comedy with my wife is not suffering, it's delightful. That's all part of life too!
This is why Pema's version of that noble truth resonates so much more (I'm paraphrasing):
When life is hard, that doesn't mean anything is wrong. When you suffer, that doesn't mean anything is wrong.
There we go. Just because you're beating yourself up. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. Life is hard. And life is also way more than just suffering, though suffering is an integral part of it.
So when you have those days where you expect 110% of yourself for 12 hours during the day, know that it's okay. And when it hurts, know that that's okay too.
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Are you busy? Like, all the time? Or do you at least feel that way? 😅
I know I feel busy all the time. Between entertaining kids, writing, making dinner, picking up kids, managing tantrums, trying to decompress and get some exercise in, try to hang out with my wife once in a while. And in earlier days, you could replace some of those kid things with work meetings and deliverables and with meeting up with friends.
Interestingly, about 90% of the time I get a little extra bandwidth, (unless I'm really running on fumes) my immediate reaction is to say "great. now I can do that OTHER thing."
🤔
I was listening to Nick Wignall on a podcast recently, and he talked about people living paycheque to paycheque. What advice would you give them if they suddenly got a 10% raise? I know what we would NOT say: Oh great, here are new things to spend your extra money on. We would probably advise them to build an emergency fund right? So that they can handle life's inevitable punches.
Wignall talks about how a lot of us are living paycheque to paycheque with our time. We get more time? We spend it right away.
And so when I get some extra time and then squeeze in something new to do, I'm like that person who makes poor choices that keeps them living paycheque to paycheque.
Instead, maybe I need to take a step back and just save a little bit of my time, invest it into bandwidth that I can use to handle life's inevitable punches (like a kid with a runny nose that can't go to daycare or school that day). I've been trying to do that lately and even earmark time just for play (though I often call it decompression time just to feel more legit). That's a discussion for another day.
Before we sign off, I'd like to play with the analogy as a thought experiment. Let's say you do get a 10% raise. Building up an emergency fund is a great idea. But so is making a capital investment that would lower your cost of living. Like buying a laundry machine so you don't have to go to the laundromat. 💦 Translating that to the subject of spending your time, it would be like using the extra time to learn a skill that might lead to a promotion or new job. So you're busy in the short term but with the idea that it'll lead to EXTRA bandwidth in the future.
Which would be awesome … but maybe still comes a step after building an emergency fund.
🤷♂️😊
So when does it make sense to spend the extra time and when does it make sense to invest it as "life bandwidth"? What's something you took on recently and you were happy with your choice?
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Six months ago, I had one of those those moments where the universe tapped me on the shoulder, leaned in and whispered in my ear: "it's time to step up."
I was considering taking a course on writing. There was a part of me that really wanted to. But also, I was super busy 😓 with a growing business and growing family (and of course being a lawyer, which is not nothing).
And what would I write anyway? I wasn't ready to write a self-improvement book yet. And fiction? Who would read it? What would be the point? All compelling, reasonable reasons not to take the course. And yet, that part of me that wanted to take it - that part of me that wanted to WRITE - just would NOT shut up.
Here was where the universe stepped in.
I thought "maybe if I can get someone else to take it with me, I'll do it." Although probably normal for a lot of people, this is actually a weird thing for me to think. 😑 I am happy to do things with strangers if they're things I want to do. And the biggest problems were that I didn't think I had time and I didn't know what the point would be - it's not like finding someone else to do it with me would solve those problems.
But anyway, I was still thinking it. So I posted on facebook:
"Thinking of doing a 6 month course on writing a book. Rallying troops. Any interest?"
When I woke up the next morning, there was interest! Four people had asked for more information...
But then I realized - THEY THOUGHT I WAS RUNNING THE COURSE! 🤦♂️ They were not asking about the course I was prepared to sign up for, they were asking about the course I had created. 😲 Except that I hadn't created a course. At least, not yet.
Well f###. 🤨
Does the universe ever send signs that obvious? 🤷♂️
Of course, my strength isn't in book writing, so I couldn't teach a course on that. My strength is in creating space for people and feelings, and nurturing the community that comes from that. So, I created a 6 month pilot workshop titled BECOMING A WRITER. After all, the reason most of us don't write is not because we don't know how, but because something (usually our feelings around it) get in the way.
Four amazing, intrepid souls participated and we wrote. Fiction. Non-fiction. Novels. Screenplays. Social change pieces.
The workshop is done now, but the space was too valuable to let slip away. So we're continuing it. And we're opening up spots for a select few for whom this sounds right.
Just to be clear: this workshop is NOT on my website (except, I guess, on this post). It's a secret.
If you've always had that itch to write but you haven't tried or haven't been able to get it to stick, this may be just the thing for you.
📝
And if not, that's cool too. I'd encourage you to do two things:
- Create more space in your life. I believe the universe talks to us much more often than we're listening.
- Don't discount something because there's no "point" to it. Sometimes that's actually the point.
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I was just minding my own business, doing the dishes and listening to Brené Brown's audiobook the Power of Vulnerability, and I heard something that made me need to turn off the water and put down the dishes. 😮
It's an older book, so this may not be new to you, but it was new to me. Brown was going through her guideposts to wholeheartedness that she outlines in The Gifts of Imperfection. One of those guideposts is about creativity. And she says:
"Unused creativity isn’t benign. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t just sit there. It metastastizes."
Well, f###. 😬
That explains a lot.
That explains the feeling that something was missing. That life was meant to be more. The simmering dissatisfaction that would flare up from time to time.
There are some lawyers who can look at how you structure a contract, or a clause, or how you draft a break fee, and it feeds their creative soul.
I am not one of them.
😬🤷♂️
For me, my creativity is painting, writing, drawing. So when I was in my years of being super busy with just law, there was a part of me that was starving to be creative.
I had so much unused creativity, and it was eating me from the inside out. Literally? Maybe. Not that I know of yet. But figuratively? Absolutely.
I've got a better balance these days and it makes a huge difference to be writing a daring adventure, or putting brush strokes down to pick out that perfect highlight.
And when I don't get the balance right, I notice it. And that's the first step towards getting it right.
So, I try to not just feed my creativity, but pay attention to the how of it.
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If you've been around the coaching industry for longer than three minutes, you'll have seen someone promise that you can have whatever future you want - you just need to manifest it (they'll even let you in on a little Secret). Basically if you believe in something, repeat your belief, and remain in a positive mental state, your dream future is yours.
Let me be clear, I love this idea like I love my sour cream & onion "healthy" knock-off pringle chips. I would just sit there and eat them all day if I could.
And I've tried to eat this manifesting stuff all day, but I can't quite stomach it (unlike those chips, where I can crush half the stack in the time it takes you to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). 🤤
Probably most of us would agree, that no matter how hard I manifest, I will never be an NBA player. 🏀 I'm almost as tall as Kyle Lowry, but I can't really pass, or shoot, and my style sense just isn't up to par for an NBA-player. Sure I could work on some of these (and I have been known to rock a decent scarf-game), but let me be clear - my NBA days weren't aborted, they were never even conceived.
And yet ... and yet, there's something to this manifesting. I know it. After all, a belief that a relationship is going to implode can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A belief that you suck and can't do anything can sabotage all your efforts (often before you even begin). So you can definitely manifest negative things.
But can you also manifest positive things?
I think so.
My coaching business has gone way better when I've properly "manifested" it (particularly when I focused on the part about getting, and staying, in a positive state of mind). I've been writing a story, and I recently hit the 100,000 word threshold. That's about 350-400 pages of paperback novel. I never would've got there if I hadn't believed I could write it.
So where's the threshold? If I cannot manifest NBA success but I can manifest business success, where's the line actually drawn? Could I manifest more business success? What about health success?
A well-read and well-thought buddy of mind thinks that manifesting works well with general goals (i.e. if you want to be healthy, successful, rich or famous, you can manifest that), but that it can have a harder time with specific goals (i.e. make it to the NBA, become dean of Harvard, get your cancer gone).
This idea of manifesting is more seductive to me than those pringle knock-offs, but every time I buy into it and don't get the results I want right away, I keep hearing this voice in my head:
"What bro, not manifesting hard enough?" 💪
This is like a gym rat looking you up and down at the gym before telling you to get lost. Do you even manifest bro? You don't belong here.
And unfortunately, that undermines you. When you try something and don't see the success that you want asap, the last thing you need is a voice in your head telling you to get out of the game because you don't belong.
You see, this manifesting idea makes you personally responsible for ALL of your success and ALL of your failure. Which, on the one hand, isn't terrible. Most of us would do well to take a bit more responsibility for our part.
On the other hand, this is terrible. It ignores the truth that life sometimes isn't fair.
When the cards are stacked against you and shit isn't falling your way, do you really need to carry the guilt on top of it that it's all your fault? That really, life isn't racist/sexist/clique/unfair/slow, you just suck.
Basically, you're at fault for everything in your life that isn't perfect. And who here has a perfect life? 😒
What do you think? Is manifesting a super-power? Is it even real? Or is it like a "healthy" chip (just really real, it just likes to pretend it is)?
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Sometimes you see the darndest things on social media. A guy posted about his trip to our hobby mecca, and he said: "Traveled over 210 miles, spent 2 days at the holy land and only bought 1 pot of [silver paint]" Now, before I go further, you need to know that this is a big deal. In our hobby, we're notorious for buying much, much more than we need. And going to Warhammer World (which has pretty much every model you'd ever want) is a major opportunity to shop. So a bunch of people commended the guy's willpower. Personally, I'm going to bring an extra suitcase with me when I eventually make the pilgrimmage there.
But everyone else was debating whether 210 miles was a long distance. All of the Americans (and Canadians) talked about how it wasn't that big a deal. But some of the Europeans disagreed.
Interestingly, I can see both sides of this. It's almost exactly 210 miles from my house to my in-laws. I'll tell you, if both kids are sleeping in the back, it feels like a leisurely jaunt. With two kids screaming in the back, it's an eternity away.
Then one comment really stuck out: "in Europe 100 miles is a long way, in America 100 years is a long time"
🤔
So true. Our perspective is absolutely shaped by the people and society around us, which is in turn shaped by its history.
It's worth taking the time to ask yourself who you want to be. And then whether that vision of yourself is encouraged or undermined by the perspectives around you.
You don't just change others who you're around, they change you too.
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"I just can't concentrate until there's a fire under my ass," my client said, "I just put off my work, feel shitty about it, put it off more, feel shittier about it, and only when it's the last possible moment, or sometimes just after that point, can I buckle down and actually do my work. I get it done, but never as well as if I'd managed my time better. And of course it's not just about the work product, because this whole time I've been making myself feel like shit."
Although that quote came from one client, I've heard the same from dozens of different clients and friends (and, hell, even myself at one point).
The biggest mistake is thinking of this as a time management issue. ⏰
If I just manage my time better, I won't procrastinate and it'll all be fine. But the time management is usually just the symptom, rather than the cause. It's like taking advil to manage your headache, but continuing to bash your head against the wall. It's going to keep hurting. And the hurting will probably get worse over time.
You see, I've found that procrastination is about emotions, not time management.
That client was feeling anxious about the work, so procrastinated to manage the anxiety.
While that works in the moment, it doesn't work in the long run.
😔
Some times things that make us good at what we do end up sabotaging us when we take them to the extreme. And I'm not talking about procrastination (does that ever make us good at what we do?), I'm talking about our inner critic.
For many of us, the inner critic really helps us out. That voice got us to study, excel, make it through law school, get a good job, do well. But when you take it to the extreme, it can make us feel like shit.
Thus begins the feedback look. The procrastination promises relief like any good pusher, and the inner critic starts to shout louder.
When all this happens, we often just need a reboot. Reset, examine what's going on, and keep going.
How do we do this?
I’ve found, through hundreds of hours of coaching clients, and many more hours of working through my own shit, that jumping straight to the solution before we truly understand the problem never serves us as well as we think it will.
The process generally goes like this:
- AWARENESS - you need to know what’s going on in your head, in your heart, and in your hands - in other words, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, and what you’re doing.
- TACTICS - hard and fast strategies to make yourself more efficient, help you produce better work, worry less, and be more grateful and light in life.
- FEELINGS and BELIEFS - your feelings and beliefs are going to be hidden glass ceilings that will hold you back until you learn to understand them and harness them.
Does this resonate? Read more.
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Today, someone asked a rhetorical question in a writing group I'm part of. Here it was:
When is it time to send out a draft for feedback?
Luckily for all of us, even though I work with words for a living, I don't understand the word rhetorical, so I decided to answer the question.
I'm not a huge baseball fan, but a few years ago, my Blue Jays were up against the Kansas City Royals . The Jays were heavy hitters that year, I don't think any other team had more home runs. But KC took us to the cleaners (in 6 games I think? though it didn't feel as close as 6 games).
Not because they hit more home runs, but because they consistently hit singles and kept putting guys on base. One single may not be a big deal. One guy on first. But get two more, and the bases are loaded. Get two more, and now you have two runs batted in. They just kept hitting singles (with the occasional double) and they ran up the score.
I learned something big while watching that series and then later while I was thinking of it when I was supposed to be writing a blog article.
I was going about it all wrong. I was aiming for home runs. ⚾
So I changed my game. Instead of aiming for home runs, I just try to aim for singles consistently.
I wrote a weekly blog for a while. I struggled with this at first and got a lot better over time. Once I realized it was never going to be a home run, I stopped aiming for the fence and I stopped being disappointed when they didn't go over.
That's a long way of setting myself up to answer a simple question: when is it time to send a draft out for feedback?
Pick a time, any time.
Whether it's next Tuesday, or whether it's after your second pass through the material, you pick the time, and you stick to it. Just show up, hit a single, and get on base. Relying on home runs could work, but may burn you in the long run.
What single do you need to be hitting right now?
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Normally, when I hear people talk about "that guy", it's a bad thing. Nobody wants to be "that guy" at the party who drank just a bit too much and is obnoxiously missing all the social cues they're getting 😵 (that's never been me, no).
🙄
Or "that guy" at the gym who hogs the squat rack to do barbell curls with an empty barbell (also never been me, for reals, although I've had to wait for this guy to finish so I could do my squats 😡🏋️♂️ ).
But every now and then the universe throws a curve ball, and "that guy" looks different.
I got an email from a former client recently with the subject line: "that guy". This is what it said:
I just wanted to say that today (just for a moment) I feel like that guy I wanted to be when I described my ideal person. Thanks for that. I hope you have as great a day as I’m having. Make sure you enjoy the weather too, because it’s absolutely perfect.
This guy was focused on being "that guy", but for him, "that guy" was the guy who he WANTED to be. The one who was kind, compassionate, even-keeled, and a general positive influence on those in his life.
Do you want to be that guy?
I do.
Most days I am.
And we all can be. The first two steps are awareness and intention:
- Who ARE you?
- And who do you WANT to be?
Until next time, dream big, and live bigger. Peace.
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I have a friend who’s a lawyer and he loves buying himself nice things. Fancy meals, nice clothes, the whole nine yards.
Growing up, his family didn’t have a lot of money.
For him, treating himself was a sign that he’d made it.
People seem to differ a little bit on how and how much it happens, but (I think) it’s generally accepted that what happens to you early in life shapes your views later. And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with treating yourself, especially in his circumstances.
So this would be fine if the story ended here.
But it didn’t end there - he wasn’t happy being a lawyer and wanted to transition into a new career, but because he was spending as much as he was earning, he had no savings, no buffer.
He had no way to transition and he was very down on himself.
But Internal Family Systems, which we talked about last week and I’ve been really getting into, is non-pathologizing.
It states that no matter who you are, no matter what your behaviors are - there is nothing wrong with you.
Read that again.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
Even addiction, depression and anxiety - these parts of us - even when they lead to an outcome you don’t want - are in fact still looking out for us. They may be mistaken on what that takes, but they still want the best for us.
From that perspective, you need to ask the question - how does the behavior serve you?
For my friend, the behaviour serves him by making him feel like he made it. He looks around, sees luxury and thinks that those humble beginnings are far behind him.
And being aware of your behaviors and motivations is the first step.
How aware are you of the things you’re doing in your life? How do the things you do serve you?
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
I was bullied as a kid. Terribly.
It was a formative moment for me. And I got over it. 😎
Or, at least, I thought I did.
😳
But it turns out I had only exiled the part of myself that experienced weakness.
This revelation hit me when I listened to an episode of the Tim Ferris Show - the guest was Richard Schwartz, the creator ofInternal Family Systems Therapy (IFS).
The premise is that we are made up of different parts that all want different things - but ultimately, these parts all want the best for us, and from us, even when they are perceived as negative.
When I was going through coach training, they asked us, “what is a part of yourself that you can’t be with?”
It took me a long time to answer this. I was good with myself, my trajectory, I was generally cool with every part of myself.
Then I thought about weakness. And being insecure.
I had done my absolute best to avoid ever having to feel that. I chased a prestigious job. 💰 I went to the gym. 💪 I watched what I ate. 🥦 So I wouldn’t be weak. So I would never worry about my spot in society’s hierarchy.
These are all good things that I did for myself, but they buried the true culprit: my relationship with weakness.
Look, this is my first foray into IFS and it’s just starting, so there’s still a ton for me to learn - both about IFS, and about how it applies to my life. I can guarantee - this won’t be the last time you’ll hear me talk about it.
As of right now, Schwartz has provided me with a framework of how to deal with all of the parts of myself. How to categorize and address each one. How to get them to work together.
What is something you’ve tried to build your life around so that you could avoid feeling it? If you listen to this podcast episode - what’s your thorn?
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
I read recently about this woman who pivoted in her 40s. She was studying to be a judge in Iran before she emigrated to the US. She got a masters degree but then kept doing odd jobs (waitressing, babysitting, working in a copy shop) until she became a stay at home mom.
For her second act, she decided to open a restaurant.
One line in particular jumped out at me:
When I told my husband that I wanted to open a restaurant, he was very resistant. He told me about the statistics, that most restaurants fail in the first six months. I told him, “You can either help me, or I’ll go and do it myself.” By that point, I was in my mid-40s, and I needed to be able to tell myself that I tried it. I can handle failure. I have been disappointed in life. I lost babies. I lost multiple dreams. But what I cannot handle is knowing that I had an opportunity but I chickened out.
It's hard to boil everything done to a single secret. After all, this woman worked super hard at her restaurant. She had an under-represented cuisine. She probably got a bit lucky too.
But if I had to guess, if I had to boil it down to a single thing, I would say her secret is that she didn't let fear stop her.
Without that, nothing else matters.
I gotta think it's the same with everyone else who is succeeding at their dream -- they didn't let fear stop them.
They had fear. 😨 That's normal.
And then they had the courage to move past it.
Personally, my courage was also borne out of fear. It got to a point where the fear of knowing I never tried was greater than the fear of trying.
That's okay. The first step is that you're moving. Once you're in motion, so many other things become easier or disappear altogether.
You got this. 😊😊
Paul
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Recently, I was just minding my own business, chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, shooting some b-ball outside of school, when I got the best email I could get right out of the blue.
It was from a former client of mine. Unsolicited. Just letting me know that I'm the bee's knees. 🐝🐝🐝
With permission, I'm sharing it here:
Hi Paul,
I was working through my FI/RE-Goal Setting-Get My Life Together spreadsheet and you know what's absolutely bonkers? How much my life has changed for the better over the past year (pandemic aside, obviously). I really think life coaching had a lot to do with it and I just wanted to start my new year by thanking you. I was promoted twice this year and finally landed in the brand management position that has eluded me for years. We managed to have an average savings rate of 57% in the back half of the year. And I got into grad school and will start my MBA this year. I don't really feel like I would have accomplished those goals if not for you helping to patiently coach me through several things holding me back.
I've never before in my life felt like I've been on such solid ground.
That my dears, is the sweet, sweet sound of someone out there living their life.
And the sweet, sweet feeling of knowing I'm making a difference in the world.
Now I get to add this email to my triumph folder. The one I turn to when I'm starting to doubt what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and whether I'm making the right choices in life.
Do you have a triumph folder? Whatcha got in there?
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I remember having a hard time after my first son was born. It's not an easy transition becoming a father.
I felt like I didn't have any time. I wasn't really drawing much satisfaction from work at the time, and so it felt like I was constantly running between different duties.
Where was the joy?
I was chatting with my therapist at the time, and we were talking about what I would do with my life if I didn't have obligations. What life would I create if I could just snap my fingers? I didn't talk about laying on a beach, I talked about filling my life with people and with purposeful work. Something that felt good to me. I gave him a few examples.
One of those examples was writing. And then he asked me a question that fundamentally changed the trajectory of my next few months:
"What if you got up early to write?"
And I said: "You're crazy. I need my sleep. It's the only thing that allows me to function right now. The only thing keeping this house of cards standing. I can't wake up early."
And he said: "Why don't you try it?"
And so I did.
I was so surprised at what a difference it made. I set my alarm an hour earlier. I was excited to wake up every morning.
And I wrote.
I got pretty deep into a novel before life derailed me. I started focusing more on coaching, and since I coached late at night, early mornings were difficult.
But that feeling of creating something - that never left me. It was fulfilling.
And after all this time, I find myself back there. Staring at the keyboard. Feeling the intimidation of a blank page. Feeling the joy of being creative.
I'm going to be writing. Want to write with me?
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During the summer of my first year of law school, I went backpacking in Europe with a good buddy. One afternoon we had just gotten to Rome and we didn’t have a place to stay.
Of course, this was a little while ago, neither of us had a cell phone, so we were walking from hostel to hostel in search of a room.
I remember being very focused.
And I’m pretty sure my buddy remembers me being very grumpy.
At some point, after we had checked out a couple places, my buddy said, “Let’s stop and eat something,” and I said, “No. Let’s just get there.” He persisted, and I eventually agreed.
We stopped and ate. It was tasty, I was laughing. And joking. And having the great time I had come to Rome for.
It was funny just how much it affected my outlook.
In the book Transcend, Scott Barry Kaufman talks about food insecurity, which tends to produce certain negative behaviours. Not just in humans, but across birds, insects, and other animals.
A hungry creature prioritizes food, and deprioritizes other things. And it gets focused (read: grumpy and hangry) in the process. This isn’t a bug - it’s a feature. They’re more likely to get food and survive.
I just want to highlight this: when they’re hungry, their perspective on life changes. Everything is interpreted through that lens.
But look, this isn’t about food. I have found that the analogy matches as we move to other aspects of life.
The point comes back to what we were talking about last week - the hull and the sail of the boat - the deficiency needs and the growth needs.
One of the deficiency needs I struggled with last week was self-esteem. I was deficient in that need. It is a fundamental need, just like hunger.
And it starts to change your perspective.
If you were to patch the hull of your ship first, some of the things you think are important now might not be important with this new perspective.
What hole below the waterline have you been doing your best to ignore?
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
I wrote last week about every lawyer secretly wanting to be a writer.
On Tim Ferriss' podcast, Steven Pressfield recently spoke about shadow careers. About the acting agent who really wants to act. About the entertainment lawyer who secretly wants to be a screenplay writer.
He talked about how we often find something adjacent to the thing that we really want to do.
It's less risky.
The "who am I to do this?" and "what if I fail?" thoughts aren't nearly so scary if you don't give a shit in the first place.
In some ways, it seems to be easier on our subconscious to never risk failing at the thing we most want to do. Or maybe we just aren't sure we're worthy of that big goal, and so we get as close to it as a smart moth gets to the flame.
It made me think about lawyers who secretly want to be writers. We spend most of our day reading and writing. Even those of us who argue cases and negotiate all day long still need to put pen to paper to draft their briefs and their clauses.
Could law secretly be a shadow career for many of us?
Maybe.
It's also prestigious and one generally makes a good living. Making it very much the safe choice. My gut tells me that safe and prestigious choices tend to end up as shadow careers more often than risky ones.
If you could try out any profession for 6 months, and then either stick with it or go back to your old one, what would you pick?
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It's not a coincidence that I talked about every lawyer wanting to be a writer yesterday. I've been thinking a lot about writing lately. I have always thought about being a writer.
For me, it's not necessarily about writing, it's about telling stories.
There are fictional stories about swords and sorcery, gods and lizardmen (and believe you me, I'm into those). 🧝♂️🧙♂️💀
And then there are non-fictional stories. Stories that get us thinking about our own life and how we want to live. Stories of the heroes among us who've turned adversity into compassion, trial into strength, and vulnerability into leadership.
💙💚💛
I believe that most people are fundamentally good inside.
And the reason we don't show up the way we want to is because life is hard sometimes. Not because that's not who we are.
So: I'm going to write a book.
A book to help burnt-out lawyers feel in control and passionate about life, and I'm looking to interview a few people for the book.
Specifically, I'm looking for people at the beginning of that journey, at the end, and everywhere in between.
All the way from those who have already made progress on feeling grateful, passionate, and happy about life. To those that feel that they're running on fumes and that their current pace isn't sustainable.
We're all different and we're all sort of similar, we have a lot to learn from each other's journeys.
I've been coaching others on this (and working on it myself) for years. In exchange for a 15 min interview, I'd love to gift each person I interview with 45 minutes of my time to see how I can help.
So, my request:
If this describes you, please go here and say "the happy lawyer." I'll take it from there.
If this describes someone you know, please put me in touch with them. They'll be helping light the way for others, so that more of us can bring our best out into the world.
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I remember feeling guilty about not being happy.
I was earning decent money. I had a good work-life balance.
I just wasn’t that happy.
And what made it worse is that I then felt bad about not being happy with my life.
I was focusing on the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of needs. I had safety, security, money, a steady job and other people have it so much worse.
Who am I to not be satisfied with what I have?
I finished this book Transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman. It’s a very interesting read, but what really jumped out at me was that he took Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs and reimagined it.
As he does so, he does away with the pyramid. He says that has us thinking about it like a video game - tackle the first thing, beat it, forget about it. Tackle the next thing, beat it, forget about it.
But that’s not how life works. We’re dealing with all of them at the same time.
He posits that it’s more like a sailboat. A sailboat is split into two groups - the hull and the sail. 💨🌊
The hull is made up of our deficiency needs - safety, connection, and self esteem.
The sail is made up of our growth needs - love, exploration and purpose.
If you don’t have any of those deficiency needs, you’re going to be spending your time just trying to keep your head above water.
If you have your deficiency needs taken care of, that’s great. But you’re still not going to be moving anywhere.
You need the sail up, you need the wind.
While I was reading this, I realized my issue was a deficiency issue - it was dealing with self esteem.
And in particular, self-esteem as a function of self-compassion (or a lack thereof).
If I treated others the way I treat myself, I would run out of friends.
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
Once, when I was younger (in high school maybe?), my father and I were talking about a book. I looked on the back and saw that the author was a lawyer. I mentioned it. Then I started talking about a story I thought, maybe, I might want to tell.
My dad said:
Every lawyer secretly wants to be a writer.
This stuck in my brain. "Wow," I thought to myself, "what must that be like to live life always wondering 'what if'?"
What if I wrote that book?
What if I was doing what I wanted to do? What if I created something?
I feel like I always flirted with writing.
Even look at the words I used above: "I thought maybe I might want to tell". Hell, there were many stories. I loved stories. I lived them. I escaped in them. My imagination was on fire.
And how glorious it would be to be able to give someone else that?
I've come to believe that everyone has a story. Many of us have more than one.
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like for us if we gave ourselves permission to actually start telling that story.
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When I was younger, my favourite rap song was Still D.R.E. Something about the melody. Or maybe it was Dre's swagger. As far as I know, it's the best comeback song ever.
Of course, it's not the only famous comeback song (are they their own genre?). The one that was going through my head as I sat down to write this email was Without Me by Eminem.
Well, I may not have bouncing cars, or scantily clad women, but I've got a big announcement for you:
After 2(ish) months - I'm back.
I don't expect to rap about prison (except maybe our self-imposed ones 😞). I don't expect to sing about bodily functions (except maybe cleaning up a child's 💩). I don't expect to talk about money (except maybe about how it controls us 🤑).
So what does back look like?
I don't know.
🤷♂️
There's real joy in what I do. And there's been real grind too. And with two kids, a marriage, a separate profession, and a life, I've got enough grind. So I'm going to try and reduce it, somehow.
I'll definitely post and email less, but I still will. The podcast will come back. Hopefully (but maybe not) weekly.
Because there's real joy in life, and I want to make sure I'm not distracting myself from it.
I'm trying to figure out how to live life. How to fly high and stay grounded. How to achieve our potential and dream big and stay in the moment.
I don't have the answers. I intend to find them.
Thanks for joining me on this journey. 😊
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Apparently there’s science to support taking cold showers. At least, I’ve been told that there’s science. I haven’t actually looked into it.
Instead, after I heard it was the bee’s knees, I decided just to try it.
And as unpleasant as it is, I like it.
It reminds me of that Mark Twain quote,
If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
I feel that way about the cold showers. I don’t do it for the health benefits.
I do it to challenge myself.
And I give this as an example of something I can do to challenge myself, even as I’m scaling back on other things.
As many of you know, I burnt out last year.
Hard.
I burnt out so hard, I wrote a blogpost about it. I was re-reading it recently to admire my writing (don’t worry, I’m at least half joking) and I started to realize I was heading down the same path again.
Some of the thoughts that were going around in my mind were:
I can do this.
I should be able to do this.
This shouldn’t be that big a deal. I’ve done it before.
But I use those thoughts to push away the warning signs.
As CS Lewis says:
Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
And if you don’t realize the road you’re heading down, it can hard be hard to walk back uphill.
But now, I want to take a step back.
That said - it’s hard to do. These things I want to take a step back from have become part of my identity.
It’s time for me to take a step off the path and figure out where I am, and where I’m going.
What path are you on? Where are you going?
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
I have a confession: I'm a Brené Brown fanboy.
Although I haven't read everything she's written, I'm pretty much in love with the shit that I have read. Needless to say, it's been very influential on me.
So when she came out with a book about leadership, I knew I had to read it.
And man is Dare to Lead dense!
It took me a while to read it because I wanted to (needed to) take my time with it. I just couldn't read it faster because it was all good stuff that I wanted to read.
Despite how full the book was of amazing stuff, picking my biggest takeaway was easy.
I've always wondered why I trust some people and not others.
In particular (and even more confusing) is when I actually like someone but won't trust them with my secrets.
Brené broke down "trust" into 7 factors.
The higher you are in each of these factors, the more likely people are to trust you. And if people don't think you're that trustworthy, do an honest self-assessment and ask yourself what you need to do better in.
These are the factors (links below are to tiny youtube videos I did for each of these factors):
- Boundaries - you respect my boundaries
- Reliability - you do what you'll say
- Accountability - you own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends
- Vault - don't share what isn't yours to share
- Integrity - you choose courage over comfort (you practice your values)
- Non-Judgment - you don't judge me
- Generosity - you assume the best of others (and their intentions)
If you do any one of these well, it's not going to guarantee that I trust you. But if you do any of them poorly, I probably won't trust you with my secrets.
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Although pre-pandemic was an age ago, I did actually read Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You in 2020.
When I was a kid, I was fed the line: "find what you love to do, and you'll never work another day."
Newport calls this the “passion hypothesis” - i.e. we all have a pre-existing passion and, if we find the job that matches it, we’ll be self-actualized and love our work.
I grew up believing this to be gospel.
And so, when I haven't loved what I've done (and I don't know too many lawyers who do), I've felt inadequate, short-changed, and angry.
Newport has some strong thoughts on the matter:
The passion hypothesis is not just wrong, it’s also dangerous. Telling someone to ‘follow' their passion’ is not just an act of innocent optimism, but potentially the foundation for a career riddled with confusion and angst.’ (his emphasis)
Well, that lands a bit too close to home. 😳
Instead he says that passion follows your skills. Develop your skills and you'll build a passion you'd be happy to follow.
It's refreshing advice. So, if you haven't discovered your passion, maybe it's time to give up.
And instead, just become so good they can't ignore you. 😊
So - what skill do you want to get so good at that they can’t ignore you?
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I'm continuing my thoughts on the most impactful books that I read this year.
Primal Leadership talks about emotionally intelligent leaders and how the prime job of a leader is create good feeling in those they lead. In other words, it's about leading, not managing.
The book is fantastic, and sort of blew my mind.
I've had a lot of experience with leaders over the years. Many good, far more bad, and some excellent.
As with everything else in life - I pay attention. I pay attention to what worked well, what didn't work well, and what was downright sabotaging.
I've also had a fair bit of experience trying to be a leader myself. Particularly in non-heirarchal situations, where an affiliative style goes a long way.
I had built up a picture in my head of the perfect leader and strove to be that person (someone who listened, lead from the front, was understanding and kind, but also firm, and who had principles).
What this book taught me is that it's much better to think of leadership as a toolkit rather than something that's right and wrong. It's not that there are bad leadership methods, it's that there are bad leadership methods for certain situations.
So things I had totally slagged actually had their use.
For example, I don't like it when leaders make decisions without listening to their people, particularly those that are closer to the situation. I wonder about those leaders that tend to think they're always right - if they're so good at everything, why couldn't they surround themselves with people who could teach them a thing or two?
However, that leadership style works very well in a crisis, when people want clear direction and leadership saying: "this is what we're going to do."
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Back in 2017, we were expecting our first child. Like probably every parent out there, we decided to prepare. So we read a bunch of books.
Perhaps unusually, I was pretty calm about the impending birth. It wasn't going to take that long, and we were going to have professionals around to help us. But right afterwards we were about to become parents and there wouldn't be professionals around to help with that! So instead of reading about pregnancy or birth, I decided to read about raising children.
Having taken such a logical approach, I decided to buck logic and instead of reading about raising a newborn (about which I knew nothing), I read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk- something that wouldn't be useful for years.
Well lucky me, it turned out it was useful immediately, although not in the way you'd think. Even though the book is aimed at talking to kids, I found after reading the book that it was easier to communicate with adults at work.
It's amazing how universal it is.
Well, I decided to read it again in 2020 now that my son is talking, and I'm so glad I did.
My biggest takeaway from the book was the skill of giving kids what they want in fantasy:
Son: "I really want to eat more skittles!"
Me: "I hear you. I wish I could give you all the skittles! I wish we could have so many skittles, we could fill a bath tub with them!"
Son: "Yeah!"
It turns out that kids just want to be vibed with. They know the rules. They just want to know you understand them. By giving them what they want in fantasy, you show them that you understand them.
It works with adults too. 😊
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A little while ago, I had what started out as a particularly good Thursday.
First, there are two things you need to know about my Thursdays:
-
I’m not a lawyer on Thursday. I coach (and blog and podcast).
-
Thursday is the day Megan and I do weekly check-ins.
Now this Thursday, I was crushing it.
I had spoken to a new prospective client and things were going well. I had a real breakthrough coaching call with a different client, I picked up Ro from school and we had all eaten dinner together. Everything was coming up gold.
And just as Megan and I sat down for our check in, she got a phone call, and took it.
It wasn’t that long, maybe 10 minutes.
I started out annoyed. And then I got pissed. 😠😡
And I was sort of pacing around the house, spoiling for a fight. I was ready to start something.
Then she got off the phone and we got into it.
🎆😔
Then, about 15 minutes into this fight, I paused and told Megan about a book I was reading.
I know right? Paul doing Paul things.
But the book is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
Hendricks argues that we all have this inner thermostat that is set to the amount of love and success and happiness that we will allow ourselves to feel.
And so, he argues, when we’re below that, we do things to bring us up to that level on the thermostat, and when we’re above that, we do things to bring us down to that level.
So what I was really doing what a symptom of my upper limit problem.
I had a better Thursday than I was used to. And I was picking a fight to bring it back down to the level I was used to. I couldn’t even tell you what the fight was about now.
It’s a form of self-sabotage.
The first step is recognizing that this is what you’re doing. The next step is adjusting your thermostat to where you want it to be.
We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.
What a year 2020 has been. Full of ups, downs, sideways, inside outs, mobius strips, and eschers.
Meanwhile, we've all kept living.
I've had the luck and passion to take advantage of my social calendar disappearing in order to read even more good books than usual.
I'm going to talk a bit about the best books I read this year, culminating in my top two.
High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard gets an honourable mention. It's a pretty amazing book. It deserves more than I will give it in this email, as today I want to just leave you with the most important thing I took away from it.
And that's the second habit of high performers which he outlines: GENERATE ENERGY
Your energy is not a fixed mental, physical, or emotional state. Again, you don't "have" energy any more than a power plant does. A power plant transforms and transmits energy. In the same regard, you don't "have" happiness. Rather, you transform your thoughts into feelings that are or are not happy. You don't have to "have" sadness; you can transform it to something else.
Something about this clicked with me, and it made me realize that I am not at the whims of my emotions which come and go.
Nor does my responsibility stop at trying to create a container where good emotions are more likely to develop.
I am responsible for actually generating the energy I have, and the feelings I want.
And I can do this.
Simply by pausing, getting present, and then thinking about one thing I'm grateful for.
What's one thing you're grateful for?
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I was cleaning up my "drafts" folder last night (the emails I started and never sent), and I saw an email I'd drafted from before I started my podcast.
I was talking about receiving the rough draft of the first episode.
My excitement and pride. Not even at the content, but just at the courage of taking the step.
At manifesting my dreams.
😊💪
It made me think about everything that's changed since then. The podcast itself had its 35th episode released last week.
And people are listening. It's had over 900 downloads so far.
What an example of comparing the gap and the gain.
A lot of the time I focus on the gap. The gap between where I am and where I want to go. I would like more people to listen. I have huge ambitions for the show and the impact that we can make together in our own lives and in this world.
Seeing that draft email allowed me to focus on the gain.
On all that I've done and how far I've come so far.
And I don't write this to brag. I write this to invite you to look at your own gain. The gap is good for setting your direction, but in the trenches it's a lot more motivating and productive to be focusing on the gain.
What's your gain?
On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 9:21 PM Paul Karvanis wrote:
"For those of you that don't know, I have a new podcast coming out, called Leader Rising. I expect it to arrive this March. I've been recording..."
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I had a chat last week with a successful entrepreneur, and we discussed being stuck in our mind and not paying attention to our body/emotions or our spirit.
She talks about how all of us, to varying degrees, are dealing with abandonment and rejection.
On the one hand, I had a loving family and felt very supported as I grew up. On the other hand, there are some of my behaviours (that persist to this day) that seem rooted in wanting more attention. For example, I can't just suck it up if I've hurt myself - I need to tell Megan. As if I subconsciously can't waste an opportunity to get sympathy.
Oh, and I was bullied pretty severely as a kid. So I know that there are some levels of abandonment and rejection.
I was telling her about my relationship with food. I'd had digestive issues a while back, and so I'd experimented with Whole30 and had landed on not really eating gluten or dairy (or drinking alcohol) for two years.
She nods.
And then asks me -- where else does that inflexibility show up in your life?
Where else does that inflexibility show up in my life?
All over the place.
My rules about working out, rules about eating desserts, intermittent fasting, my habit tracker. And 2+ month streak of sending daily (weekday) emails.
Wow.
Not that it's all bad, but it's definitely something to pay closer attention to.
What about you - is this something present in your life?
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I co-lead a fantastic workshop yesterday with the amazing Kara Hardin. It was for lawyers to manage parental burnout and perfection.
Kara said something interesting that I wanted to share with you.
We had arranged for breakout sessions, and while we were gathering after the first breakout, Kara asked us to close our eyes and just sit with the feelings we had from talking with the other participants.
How many of you feel heard? she asked.
Hands went up. Heads were nodding.
Even though a lot of you didn't get to talk, she said, you still feel heard because you made space to hear others. Making space for others helps you make space for yourself.
She was right.
I was in the breakouts participating. As it was my workshop, I wasn't really sharing - I was just making space for others. And I felt heard.
I felt like I belonged.
And that's powerful.
What opportunity to belong are you missing under your nose?
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It’s okay to give up desserts, I wrote to myself. You don’t need to eat them because others do. Or because you used to, or because you love them.
If they’re not worth the cost, then they’re not worth the cost.
Computer games are desserts.
🍰
It was actually a really helpful (and not that cryptic (in context)) message. I’d played some computer games that day, and was struggling with how I felt sort of shitty that day - I think because of the computer games.
I liked playing them, on the other hand, I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
And the interesting thing is that I actually like my relationship with desserts right now - I eat them sometimes, usually in moderation, and some times not. I’m enjoying them without making it a big deal in my mind or to my body.
It gave me a direction to aim towards with computer games.
This is just one recent example of how journaling has helped me to show up in my life.
😊
And so when one of my clients wanted to learn how to journal but he needed direction, I thought about the You Rising Journaling Prompts that I created.
When he said that the main problem was that he was having trouble finding the time for it, I knew those prompts wouldn’t be ideal (they’re only about 5-8 mins per sitting, but still, it’s 5-8 mins per sitting).
So I created these Learn to Journal Prompts for him. These start easy and build (very slowly and gradually) through the month, to help you build the habit and demonstrate the value that journaling has in your life.
We discuss this and more on this episode.
LINKS:
Learn To Journal - https://leaderrising.com/learntojournal
You Rising Prompts (more advance) - https://leaderrising.com/you-rising-prompts
A friend recently talked to me about his glow in the dark confidence.
It's different than a flashlight, he said.
Glow in the dark absorbs what the world gives it. Flashlights create their own light.
He was confident insofar as he reflected the success and confidence he felt the world had in him. Writer's block on a factum? Confidence recedes. Miscommunication with a client? Confidence recedes. Lose a case or two? Confidence gone.
He's been the flashlight before and I know he will be again.
Part of me suspects that you don't need to jump straight from glow-in-the-dark confidence to flashlight confidence, that as an interim step you can change your glow-in-the-dark to be powered from within.
Vishen Lakhiani, CEO of Mindvalley, talks about Lofty Questions. A Lofty Question is a question that you plant into your subconscious that your brain then tries to answer. As it tries to answer it, it looks for corroborating evidence. So here you could ask:
Why am I very capable?
Why am I confidence-inspiring?
or
Why am I already a success?
Then your mind looks for evidence of that in the real world. And instead of a tailspin down, you begin a (gradual (or quick)) virtuous cycle up.
And it's not necessarily a bad thing if you feel resistance. It's a sign that the message is imprinting. That is good.
Just be curious, acknowledge it, and move on.
There are, of course, lots of other ways to be building confidence. What do you find has worked for you?
-Paul
PS. In a sign that the world moves in waves, I've been thinking a bit about confidence lately.
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Some days you got it, and some days you don't.
Today was one of those latter days. I felt it as soon as I sat down to meditate. My energy was off.
Often I try to plow through. It's sometimes manageable with legal work, but doesn't turn out as well as if I fixed my energy.
It doesn't work at all with coaching work.
That's the gift (and curse) of this work, you can't hide.
Today I needed to record this week's podcast episode, so instead of trying to plow through (the episodes aren't that great when my mood is off), I got dressed and went for a walk. I ran into a friend. We connected. I kept walking. I reset while I was outside in the cold. And by the time I got back:
I had it. 😊😎
It's not as simple as some days you got it and some you don't. Today I was in both camps. And more importantly, demonstrated that I had the power to find it on days when I didn't have it.
So take a second - do you got it right now? If yes, great! What's work you can do to really leverage this state you're in?
And if you don't? That's cool. What's something you can do to reset?
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I wrote this several weeks ago, and although I've got Facebook under control now, I still thought sending this email would be useful. In part because I went to play a computer game on Saturday and noticed some of the same feelings I describe below.
I got Facebook under control by pulling back, visiting it less, and putting my ass where my heart wants to be.
I think the same approach will be useful in dealing with computer games. I sometimes want to play. And then I keep playing in order to finish a mission even after the desire is gone.
The other thing that really helps is that I've noticed that my thinking isn't that straight in the moment. So I need to create rules. And in the moment when I go to take the path of least resistance I remember that a more rested, more resourced, more perceptive me had already decided what was best for me in this moment.
And I follow the rules I've set for myself.
Why do we do things that are bad for us?
Why do I do things that are bad for me?
I know how I feel after I check Facebook. Sort of gross. Icky. Sad.
And yet, every time I tell myself - "This time will be different. You're only logging in to check X. As soon as you've done it, you'll sign out. ... Well, you know you're a bit addicted. But you manage it well. And this time, you're going to manage it really well. You can't just leave Facebook anyway, you need it for your business."
And is it ever different? Some times I guess.
Some times I don't feel icky. Just blah. And rarely, rarely, I feel happy and uplifted. But that's what keeps me coming back.
I'm settling into a new routine, and when I do, I'm going to create some new rules to fence it in.
And what about you?
What are you doing in your own life that you know better?
Where you tell yourself:
- "Just this time..."
- "This time will be different..."
- "I don't need it. I could stop whenever..."
Let me know. I'm interested to hear your perspective.
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I was reading an article yesterday about the Toronto Raptors and their preparations for the next season. The author was analyzing each of the eastern conference competitors. He talked about the Philadelphia 76ers and all the moves they made, and about how they might not be any better despite the moves. 🏀
He then talked a job where he wasn't that busy but he did his best to look busy. His boss had warned him: "Don't confuse movement with progress."
He drew on his boss for inspiration for his analysis of the 76ers. He said: "Don't confuse movement with progress."
🤓
Recently I was talking with a friend about todo lists. This friend is the plan-and-execute type. He spends his time getting shit done.
But he doesn't think that much about the long term. He's always doing whatever's in front of him without really turning his mind to the future.
It's the same idea - "don't confuse movement with progress."
He's making lots of movement, but without an eye on his long term goals, he has no idea if he's making progress.
Hell, without knowing his long terms goals, he can't know if he's making progress.
What is one long term goal you're clear on?
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Even though I could tell at the time that it was sort of ridiculous, I couldn’t stop myself.
I had just missed a supervision call as part of my coaching certification and I was going to be charged around $200USD.
And I was just kicking the sh*t out of myself.
You should (not) have heard the self-talk going on. Or worse, the emotions underneath the talk. We can often argue with thoughts, but feelings are a whole other ballgame.
It wasn’t healthy.
🤷♂️
A friend recently asked “If your relationship with money was like a relationship with a person, what would it be?”
One woman said, “It’s a booty call, cause it’s great when it’s here, but it isn’t always around when I need it.”
Another person said, “It’s the thrill of the chase, the initial courtship stages where we’re trying to figure out what each of us wants.”
And I said, “Mine is like a broken marriage, because we’re always around each other, but we sort of hate each other.”
😠😡
Both stories illustrate the same point - I have had a bit of a messed up relationship with money.
I learned a lot from examining this story.
I was telling myself that money was a bit evil…
Because I wasn’t happy.
And I blamed not being happy on my job. And I did my job for money. So, in my mind, this need for money was causing me to be unhappy.
So I wasn’t the biggest fan of spending it, and it was torture to waste it. After all, if I wasted it, then I was wasting the suffering that I had endured to earn it.
Not a super healthy thought process, eh?
But it can be changed. I have changed it. And it’s made a big difference in my life to have changed it.
Everyone has their own story with money. What are you telling yourself about money that is influencing your decision making?
We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.
From a practical perspective (ie. how it actually shows up in your life), I wonder if confidence is more than just about having a belief in yourself that you can do things.
Confident people go out there and dare. They try new things, they take chances, they set themselves up for the possibility of failure, knowing that greater rewards await those who can tolerate and take risk. Most people, when they say that they want more confidence, they're talking about wanting more of that.
But you know who else falls in that camp? People who aren't worried. People who aren't worried about the outcome. People who trust that no matter how this turns out, everything will work out just fine (if not great).
In that sense, you don't necessarily need to believe you can do it, you just need to believe that it will work out either way.
Confidence may also just be the absence of worry.
What do you think? This is something I'm thinking through and would love other POVs on...
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I've been reading Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization by Scott Barry Kaufman and I've learned something pretty interesting:
Maslow never intended his heirarchy of needs to be in a pyramid.
Apparently that was done by a management consultant in the 60s (often I'm surprised at how much management consultants are paid for what they produce, but in this case I wonder if the hierarchy would have been nearly as popular if it wasn't in a pyramid).
They're not meant to be levels in a video game, where you win at one and then move on to the next and eventually you win at life. We are working on all of them at the same time.
Also, life isn't something you win at. It's something you live.
🤔
Since the needs can be grouped into two groups: deficiency needs and growth needs; Kaufman says that a much better analogy is a sailboat.
The deficiency needs represent the hull of the boat. If you don't have them, you're going to spend most of your energy trying to stay above water.
But even if you have all of them, that's not enough for real movement. You're just going to float there. That's where the growth needs come in - they're the sail.
The more you open yourself, the more you open your sail, the further you'll go. The sailboat isn't the purpose in and of itself (the way a pyramid is meant to be conquered), the sailboat is just the vehicle.
The vehicle for us to go out and live life.
The analogy also shows that you can't just pursue self-actualization at the expense of everything else. What good is a sail if you don't have a boat to mount it on?
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Yesterday I went for a walk on the West Toronto Railpath. As I passed the UP Express (which is the dedicated rail link between city and airport), I passed a flight attendant/pilot, clearly on his way to work.
He was glancing around and he had a bit of a worried look on his face.
As we passed each other, I was hit by a wall of SCENT.
I was more than 6 feet away, but it was still uber strong. 👃🦨🦨
The smell was so strong that I started coughing.
🤧🤧🤧
No wonder the poor guy was worried. Everyone around him must have been coughing. He must have thought EVERYONE had COVID.
The poor guy had unwittingly changed his reality.
He thought the whole world had COVID simply because he put on (5x ... 10x?) too much perfume.
Where are you changing your reality in a way that is not only not true, but also doesn't serve you?
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This past Sunday, we got treats. Megan and Ro picked up croissants for the family. Ro arrived home covered in crumbs. Croissant obviously gone.
I saved mine.
Tuesday evening I decide I want to eat my croissant. I pop it into the toaster oven to heat it up (side note: do you do this? If not, you must try.)
But then I didn't get to it until Ro was in the kitchen eating his bedtime snack.
Those of you with kids know that it can be a bit dicey, eating treats around kids unless they're getting some too. But we only had the croissant for me, and I didn't want to share.
But obviously I need to eat it while it's still warm, so I'm in a bit of a pickle.
🤔🤔😟
I decide I need to eat it, and so I'm standing in the corner risking furtive bites whenever I think he isn't looking.
Is that weird? Maybe.
Or maybe it's normal. Either way, when Megan told me that I should just go sit down, that Ro knows he's had his croissant - I felt a little foolish.
He looked at it, then up at me. "Dadda, you have a croissant?"
"Yeah, it's the one you and momma got for me."
"Oh."
And then he runs off to play.
First, I was impressed. Instead of a breakdown, I received maturity. You never know what someone is capable of until you give them a chance.
Second, I realized I WANTED to share. So I called him over, and the two of us split the rest of it.
It made me wonder, where do I need to give myself a chance to find out what I'M capable of?
And also, where else am I being selfish when I would rather be generous?
What about you?
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A while back, I decided that law wasn’t going to make me happy. So I thought long and hard about what I would do instead.
I came up with three options.
I decided that if I could do it all over again, I would be a therapist, or a writer, or I would own a retail store.
I remember saying to my coach, “Which one do I pick?”
And she said, “Does it matter?”
And in that instant, I realized that it didn’t matter which one I picked.
I was stuck. All that mattered is that I start moving.
Great, but that still doesn’t answer the question of what direction to move in.
So I turned to Clayton Christensen in How Will You Measure Your Life and realized I needed to test my assumptions.
My assumption was not that I would succeed. I believed I would succeed. It’s probably the same for you - we’ve got a history of setting goals and achieving them.
My assumption was that I would like it.
That doing these things would make me happy.
So I tested them. I picked one I love. And I started to build the life that would make me happy.
And then I burnt out. Hard.
What went wrong?
We discuss this and more on this week’s episode.
As I write this, the sun is peeking over the horizon. 🌇
It reminds me - what might we be able to accomplish if we approached it with the same relentlessness of the sun. If EVERY day, we were to go to work. Rise above the horizon and walk our journey across the day.
And it is RELENTLESS.
Often we don't get to work if we think nobody is looking. The sun isn't like that. 🌥 It doesn't matter if there are clouds, it still rises.
Often we don't get to work when life is too busy. When the proverbial winter is here. ❄ The sun may put in shorter shifts, but it still always puts in its shift.
What would it look like for you to act more like the sun?
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On Friday, I got a call from daycare. Ro already had a runny nose. Now he was coughing.
He has asthma, so it's not that unusual for anything he's fighting to go straight to his chest, but still: "please come and pick him up." I pick him up, we get tested at 5.30pm that evening.
The nurse says - even if the result is negative, if you were self-isolating, you still need to self-isolate. "Why?" I ask.
"Because it's only 70% accurate."
Huh. 🤦♂️
That would be a false negative. It gives you a negative result when really the underlying truth is that you're positive.
A false positive is the positive result when really you're actually negative.
As you can see by the fact that we're using these tests, having false positives or false negatives is not necessarily a deal-breaker.
🤔🤔🤔
A test that gives false positives can still be relied on if it gives you a negative. You know for sure you DON'T have it.
A test that gives false negatives can still be relied on if it gives you a positive. You know for sure you DO have it.
And tests that give both??
Well, it needs to have something else redeeming. Maybe it's super quick or super cheap and can be used as a diagnostic or to allow far more people to take the test. Maybe it's painless and the more reliable test is invasive.
Or maybe it's the only test we got.
Reminds me of how lawyers sometimes view their job. Have a shitty day, this job sucks. Win a case, they were made for this job. We're testing it every day, and a lot of these are false results.
Which doesn't mean it can't be used as a diagnostic, but it DOES mean that you need to bring extra awareness. Awareness that they could be false results.
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Recently, I sent an email about having a massive perspective shift that let me happily deal with a screaming preschooler.
A buddy responded, and offered something that made a big difference. He said that when he's been doing something difficult, he's been asking himself:
"What if this was the last time I ever got to do this?"
I've been trying it. It's a game changer.
It changes parenting. It changes marriage. It changes work.
It lets me appreciate what there is to appreciate instead of worrying about what's next. Like a pill that has the potential to instantly put me right in the moment.
And sometimes with certain tasks after I ask myself what if this was the last time I ever got to do this, I answer "good riddance!"
That's really important information to have too.
How much of what you do would you miss if it was the last time? And how much would you be happy to see go?
And today, what is one thing that you will pretend it's the last time you ever got to do it?
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Last night, when my head hit the pillow, my mind lit up. 🧠🔥
It had so many things it wanted to think about. So even though I'm trying to will it to sleep, it's resisting. It was a losing battle for a little bit until I finally managed to outlast it.
However, I'm starting to figure it out. I'm gaining the upper hand on my mind.
I've noticed a correlation.
Yesterday I spent all day mentally on the go. I jumped from one task to another. When I was cooking and cleaning I put on an audiobook. When I was doing my exercises, I put on a podcast. When I went for a walk, I called a friend.
I didn't really give my mind any time to unwind.
The less space I leave in my day, the more my mind wants to take space at the end of the day (and noticing this correlation is critical to building better sleep habits).
I think it's a sign. A sign to do less. And to be more intentional about it.
What sign are you being sent that's right under your nose?
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A week or two ago, I look at my calendar for the day, and I get excited. There's nothing in the evening. I've got time to get my work done during the day, and I'll be able to spend some time on my hobbies in the evening.
There's one thing in particular I really want to do. I really want to paint my models.
And then when the time rolled around, I cleaned the kitchen, because it needed to be cleaned. I tidied my workspace, because it was messy. I organized my email, because the overflowing inbox was stressing me.
And before I knew it, the evening was over. I didn't manage to make it to the one thing I wanted to do.
I was pissed. 😡😡 And disappointed.
😟😞😢
A few days ago, I see this clip of Steven Pressfield and he says:
“Put your ass where your heart wants to be.”
And I realized that this was part of my problem. I wasn't putting my ass where my heart wanted to be.
And this is more than just an imperative - it's also a compass. Because when I just listened to where my heart wanted to be, I took a totally new direction. I learned what I actually wanting to do.
So the last few days, I've given myself permission to do just that. I'm not painting, I'm trying to create a diarama. Why? Who the f### cares.
And I gotta tell ya - when you put your ass where your heart wants to be, it feels pretty good.
We chat about it on this week's podcast.
Originally printed in the Hellenic Canadian Lawyers' Association's Fall 2020 Edition of Legalese (hence the lack of emojis 😂🤷♂️):
PROCRASTINATION IS ABOUT EMOTIONS, NOT TIME MANAGEMENT
Somewhat recently, while working from home, I had an email I needed to write for work. It needed some reasonably complicated legal analysis. I needed to provide an opinion. It was going to important people.
But, my workspace was (a little bit) messy. So obviously I had to clean it. And the kitchen was (really) messy. So obviously I had to clean that too. And while I was cleaning the kitchen, I looked out the window and saw the lawn. The grass was pretty long.
So I found myself outside, trying to start my lawnmower. At this point, I think it's pretty clear to all of us that I was procrastinating. But in the moment, I had good reasons. My neighbour had mowed both of our lawns last week, and I needed to get out there and mow both of our lawns before he did it again.
I tried to start the lawnmower. I primed the engine, and yanked on the cord. There was a bit of noise and then it went silent. So I primed the engine some more, and yanked on the cord again. A bit more noise, and then it went silent. So I primed a final time. It still didn't work.
Then I realized, the spark plug was unplugged. Silly me. This is easy to fix. Just plug it in and yank the cord.
Except it still didn't work.
This time, because I had overprimed it. The engine was now flooded with gas.
Most of us think that procrastination is about time management. We don't get working because we're lazy and haven't quite yet figured out how to be go-getters. But that doesn't quite fit for me. Look at my procrastination - it involved a lot of work! I cleaned two different rooms and mowed the lawn.
I was reading an article recently in the NY Times which said that procrastination was an emotional problem.
That we get stuck in procrastination cycles because we can't manage negative feelings around a task.
When you look at it through that lense, what happened to me makes a lot more sense. I was nervous about this email. I was anxious about getting it right. I was worried about what the important people would think of me. I couldn't manage these feelings properly (hell, I'm not even sure if I took the time to be conscious of them). So instead I did other things that needed doing.
Your efforts to fix something rarely work if you're focused on the wrong problem. It's like me with the lawnmower. I kept priming the engine when all I needed to do was connect the spark plug. Not only did I not solve the problem, I made it worse. By the time I was done, even the solution to the original problem (plugging in the spark plug) wouldn't work.
If I had thought that my procrastination was because I needed to be more of a go-getter, I might have tried to raise the stakes. Reminding myself how important it is and just "buckling down". By doing that, I would have increased the emotional pressure on it, increasing the negative emotions. I might finally manage to increase the self-pressure enough to overcome it, but then I've spent the day awash in negative emotions.
You do that enough, and you start to feel pretty shitty in life.
Additionally, it can be dangerous. You’ve heard of Pavlov’s dog? By feeding dogs after ringing a bell, Pavlov trained them to salivate when the bell was rung. They knew the bell meant food, so they would salivate because of the bell, even if there was no food there.
When you procrastinate, you feel better in the moment. You are Pavlov with your productivity. You’re training yourself to procrastinate in the future. It can become a negative feedback loop. That’s not ideal.
Additionally, running away from feelings generally just makes those feelings stronger. So when I put off writing that work email, the job gets harder, not easier.
So here are two suggestions to do instead:
- Take a second. Whenever I try to power through, I end up raising the stakes. By noticing that I have the urge to procrastinate, I get a chance to take a moment. That's like looking at the engine instead of just deciding it needs priming.
- Get to the root. What are you trying to avoid? What negative feelings are lurking just outside your peripheral vision. Is it worry? Fear? Sometimes simply naming it gives you freedom. Sometimes you’ll need to do more.
- Put roadblocks in front of your stressors. I happen to stress about my inbox. Turning off my outlook (it stops incoming messages) doubles and sometimes triples my productivity as it frees up my mind to focus on the task at hand.
- Work first. Reward later. I’ve never seen “just this once” stop at once. Do the task first. Reward yourself after.
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Forget monkeys and typewriters, I realized with a start, we should be asking how long it would take monkeys 🐵🐵 to create a cirque de soleil show. 🎪🎪🤡
I was staring out my window at a bunch of kids in the schoolyard across the street. A bunch of tires had been delivered earlier this week, and they'd spent their recesses doing tire races. Hoarding tires. Building forts.
A few days later, they started sitting and bouncing on the tires like they were riding ponies. 🐎
All stuff I would have expected.
🤔
Now, a few days after that, they'd hooked the tires on the top of poles, and were hanging off of them while someone else pushing them around the pole.
They were spinning. Fast. In some cases nearly horizontally.
Acrobats doing acrobatics. 💫
They looked like the children of cirque de soleil dancers.
And it had only taken a few days and some creativity to get there.
The earlier games were predictable, but they kept playing and came up with new games as they played.
Play was the secret to accessing their creativity and creating something new out of what they had.
What's something that would benefit from YOUR play and creativity?
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"I've got two things I want to talk about today," I said to my coach. "One, I want to talk about growing my business, and two, I want to talk about getting my energy right. Not really sure where to start, just wanted to put that out there."
"Which do you think we need to focus on first?" He asked. The question sounded open, but I knew it wasn't. A test almost.
I took a moment.
"Honestly, right now I'm more concerned about my energy."
"That's right," he said gruffly. "I say this to people all the time. If you just focus on getting your biz growth, but never manage your energy, you're going to burn out. Meanwhile, if you get your energy, your vibration, at the right level. Your energy becomes your marketing department."
⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡
I think there's something for all of us to take away from this. Substitute building your business for "getting a raise", "getting a promotion", "losing weight", "being a great parent", or really almost anything else.
When we bring that next level of energy, when we're feeling good about life and it's coming out of our pores, that energy is contagious.
That energy fuels growth, fuels change, fuels dreams.
Basically, when you focus on outcome without energy, the outcome isn't sustainable. When you focus on energy first, the outcome often becomes far easier to achieve.
And as for me? I've been stepping up my game energy-wise, and it's been a game-changer.
So - it's a new Monday. Start of a new week, and potentially start of something new for you.
What's one thing you can do today to GENERATE good energy for yourself?
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Does this sound familiar?
You've got more to do, but dinner needs to get started, so you close your laptop and start trying to whip up something that's reasonably healthy, reasonably tasty, and not too much work - meanwhile, there's a rugrat 👶running underfoot and he wants to play and read and he's not really understanding why it's important to make food, all he really wants is to play 🪀🧸and then sometime soon he's going to get hungry 🤤 and then wonder why food isn't already there (or just start having meltdowns without realizing he's hungry)...
It's almost enough, day after day, to make me say - where are all the amazing moments in life? Is this what I signed up for?
That was me, recently.
Meanwhile, my wife takes my son out, and then I'm cleaning at home listening to a Brene Brown podcast with David Kessler, a grief specialist.
Well, he lost his son when his son was around 21 years old.
And he says, the worst pain is always your own.
And my heart is breaking for him. And my heart is breaking for me, were I to ever be in his shoes.
And then Brene says it's those normal moments that we miss most. The ones that we don't even realize are there until they're gone.
And then my wife and son come home, and he's still melting down.
And this time, it's amazing. To see him grow. To see him try to assert his own control on the world and start to make sense of it.
Same shit, same day, different outlook, different impact.
What a difference perspective makes.
So let me leave you with this - where are you taking your life for granted?
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Back in November 2007, I got home at around 1.30am a bit tipsy and totally full of myself. We had just finished day 2 of the second round of interviews for Toronto firms. I had interviewed with five firms over the course of two days and felt like I could have picked any one of them.
I was the shit. 😎I was sure of it.
A good friend of mine was doing Calgary interviews a week later, and so I fired up my computer and wrote an email to her explaining how to ace her interviews. It took me over an hour.
I had totally forgotten about this.
My friend told me a few weeks ago that she still sends my email to people when they ask her for interviewing advice. I asked her what she was talking about. And she forwarded me the email.
Well, it was a bit cringy.
😬😬😬
There were a few instances of writing in the third person. 🤦♂️
I was young, drunk, and out of control, what can I say.
🤷♂️
But the advice? Well, the advice was solid.
Still is solid.
And here's the thing that's still resonating with me now:
I want a theme and theory to how you're going to present yourself. IOW, what exactly are you and why are you good for the firm? ... Maybe you're the dedicated hard worker, the intrepid genius or the friendly savant.
I chose to be the problem-solver. I had examples to back it up.
Us humans, we're meaning-making machines.
A lot of us are afraid of being put into boxes, but the boxes don't define you. They just help others grasp a small part of who you are and what you're capable of.
Play to that where it serves you.
We discuss this narrative, and its effects on identity (fake it till you make it) on this week’s podcast episode.
I used to meet up with my mother at Queen's Park on Remembrance Day. We would see the artillery being fired and observe the silence.
I've been able to recite Flanders Fields by heart since I was young (I've written it out below without double checking - every error a celebration of my commitment to it).
It's weird to me. I play wargames. I collect armies of little models and then battle against my friends. The universe we play says "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war." The fiction I read is almost exclusively about war and adventure. And yet, I'm a bit of a pacifist and hope that none of my loved ones will ever see the horrors of war.
Maybe it's in this darkness that I get to explore the difficulties of humanity, comforted that I don't have to experience it myself.
It feels to me that all of life is on a spectrum. You have torture, sadism, and indiscriminate killing on one end. You have togetherness and community on the other. War is somewhere close to the torture end.
That means that our lives can be viewed from the lens of whether we helped to move our society in one direction or other down this spectrum. That means that every time you reach out with love, every time you accept someone as they are and invite them to belong, you're in your own way pushing back against war.
We shouldn't just remember our dead. We should be honouring their sacrifice. That means building a world of freedom. A world of community. A world of love.
Every time you reach out with community and love, you honour them.
In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow
between the crosses row, on row,
that mark our place, and in the sky,
the larks do, bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago,
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you, with failing hands, we throw,
the torch. Be yours to hold it high.
We shall not rest, though poppies grow,
in Flanders Fields.
-- Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae
PS. In a similar vein, and honouring those who have served and sacrificed more recently, check out Highway of Heroes by the Trews.
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I am fascinated with the financial independence movement. This idea that we can choose what we pursue because we WANT to rather than because we NEED to in order to pay the bills. This idea that society's truths don't need to be our truths. This idea that money serves me, rather than me serving money.
One of the bedrocks of the FI movement is the 4% rule, so named as it argues that if you can live off of 4% of whatever you have saved, then you can retire in perpetuity (excellent run down on the 4% rule here for those interested).
So if your life costs $40,000 per year, you can retire once you hit $1,000,000.
Of course, the world has changed. Interest rates are rock bottom, there's very little inflation.
Which is why some people are saying that the 4% rule is now the 5% rule. This felt counter-intuitive to me, I would've thought that as interest rates are lower, we might need a larger nest egg. However, this particular expert feels that inflation is a far more important.
So the low inflation (and the reduced draining of your nest egg) outweighs the low interest rates.
This means that the person whose life costs $40,000 per year now only needs to save to $800,000.
That means they'd hit financial independence YEARS earlier... 😲😲
What would you do with a few extra years of your life?
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My really good buddy got married just outside of Boston about 3 years ago. Before we came back to Canada, we took a little walking tour of the Boston centre, and learned a lot about the American Revolution.
I was surprised.
It was goddamn inspirational. I was moved. The risks and sacrifices they took in the name of freedom. I finally understood why Americans had such pride in their country. It was a glorious beginning.
It reminded me of the lyrics from Mourning in Amerika by Rise Against (give it a listen if you like Rock or Punk):
Under moonlit skies and surveillance As we cheer from the stands in the stadiums On a jumbotron we all sing along to escape Once we were the lighthouse To the world's most desperate ships But what we became was a towering flame Leading the moth right into it Now we are waking up to the phone lines cut
It's been a weird four years. Given my focus on leadership, I've got some very definite views on the "leadership" south of the border.
I don't think Trump created the racism that's flowed since he stepped into power, but I do think he's done more than simply bring it out of hiding. They talk in Primal Leadership about how people look to the leader for an example. I won't speak to his policies because frankly I don't know them that well.
What I will say is that I think he was one of the worst examples of a leader (and of acting with honour, justice, and decency) that I've seen in a long time.
I'm very interested to see if the movement he encouraged crumbles or continues on the same trajectory.
That's where we have an incredible opportunity right now.
That movement's trajectory comes down to us. How do we treat it? Do we marginalize it? Pretend it doesn't exist (for another 4 years)? Try to include it in the conversation? Make a martyr out of it?
Honestly, I'm not sure.
My experience tells me that most people are still people. Most people want and respond to human connection.
So I wonder if we undermine the movement one person at a time by reaching out to them and making them feel heard and that they belong. That truly, we're rowing in the same direction.
That they belong in the great American project. Ready to be a lighthouse to the world's most desperate ships.
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"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile."
I remember being fascinated by the Borg (from Star Trek). The Borg are cyborgs linked into a hive mind called the Collective. They would descend on a world, crush the resistance, and assimilate all the tech and the people (turning them into drones).
On the one hand, I appreciated their dedication to getting better, and how they tried to take the best of everything around them.
On the other hand, I can't say I was a big fan of their campaign of genocides.
They travelled in these gigantic cube ships (perhaps it was the most efficient shape?) and they terrorized all who they came across. They would always announce themselves:
"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile."
For many people, it WAS futile. They became assimilated.
But for Captain Picard, Captain Janeway, and the others, they triumphed, even if it seemed touch and go at times.
To me, in a way, this feels like the tyranny of stats.
Resistance was USUALLY futile, but it wasn't ALWAYS futile.
We gotta remember, stats are an assessment of a group of data points to find trends.
If Captain Picard looked at the stats and said "well, the Borg are only defeated 6.8% of the time, so we better run." then there would have been a lot more deaths as the Borg that he didn't stop swallowed entire worlds.
AND we would have missed out on primo entertainment.
In your life, there's only one data point that really matters - you.
So when someone comes to you and tells you: "These are the stats. Resistance is futile." - you gotta ask yourself: "Is resistance worth it here?"
The stats may show that smoking increases your odds of cancer. Maybe that's not a battle you need to fight.
And if the stats show that most people aren't happy?
Or that most people will never achieve their dreams?
Maybe THAT'S a sentence worth resisting.
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"What's wrong with you?" she asked. "Why are you so anal about sleep?" 😑
We were dating. I think she was annoyed that I was trying to push bedtime.
💤💤💤
But it was more than that. I could tell her every day (and had told her most days) exactly how much sleep I'd had the night before. I tracked it. Paid attention to it. Paid attention to how I felt and what I was capable of in relation to how much sleep I'd got.
"Because," I said after a moment. "Because to the extent I'm me and I'm at all special, it's thanks to sleep."
"To the extent that I like and that I'm proud of who I am, it's thanks to sleep."
I'm pretty serious about my sleep.
😴
So when a buddy mentioned to me that he's been keeping a habit tracker and one of his habits is going to bed early - I had to ask:
"How many times have you put an X for that habit?"
"Zero" he said sheepishly.
I knew that I wanted to explore it on this episode of the podcast. In the shadow of last week's episode where we talk about getting rid of habits, this one is a focus on building new habits.
I was reading in Outliers about Avianca Flight 052 from Bogota to New York which crashed in 1990. ✈
☁☁☁ There was some bad weather, and the flight was put into three holding patterns, just burning fuel.
They aborted a landing and attempted a go-around.
Turns out that planes burn a lot more fuel when they're flying low than up high in the thin air.
They're holding, holding. Asking for permission to land.
It doesn't come.
At some point, the engines give out and the plane crashes. Eight of nine crew members (including all three flight crew members) and 65 of the 149 passengers on board were killed.
💀💀
The engines didn't malfunction, they just ran out of fuel.
Turns out that the biggest cause was that the pilots never used the word "emergency." Gladwell argues that it's because they were deferential to the authority of the NY traffic controllers.
I'm sitting here waiting for the US election results to roll in, and I'm unexpectedly nervous. 😬😬😬
I'm not American. I've done a pretty good job at ignoring most of the noise that comes from south of the border over the last 3.75 years. And, perhaps most importantly, I take the long view that human progress isn't linear, and that these steps may be necessary to fuel the amazing growth to come.
And despite how unexpected they are, my feelings are here. And I'm sitting with it.
Ask for what you need.
Take the space that you need.
You don't want to keep ignoring what's going on inside of you until the engines give out and you crash.
So whether you're rumbling with what's going on in the US, with an impending second wave, with an enternity of being cooped up and the loss of your normal, I want you to know that it's normal.
It's okay.
And that it too shall pass.
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Two paths diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less travelled by.
And it led to Parkside Drive. If I'd taken the other path, it would have looped around into High Park's dog park.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost
I was chatting with a client recently when he mentioned an analogy about being in the woods. So I decided to throw a metaphorical dart. 🎯
I asked him if there were two paths diverging in the wood.
Turns out my client has a bone 🦴😠 to pick about this poem (similar to the one I have about the chicken and the egg 😂), and he spent a few minutes educating me.
Apparently the poem is NOT about taking the road less travelled vs the road more travelled by - it's about taking ANY road vs sitting around at the crossroads, never deciding, and never taking any road at all.
This, to me, feels a bit like life.
Many people forget that not making a decision, or putting off making a decision, is, in itself, a decision.
Some times, we just need to commit.
And where we go isn’t as important as the fact that we’re moving.
As for me? I was on a walk in High Park on a beautiful day. Either of the paths suited me just fine.
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One of my buddies and I were learning to play poker at the same time. Let's call him John.
John thought he had a decent hand, and raised. Some people called his raise. The pot got bigger. Another card was dealt.
😏
John raised again, they called. The pot got bigger still, and another card was dealt again.
😬
Of course, those later cards didn't quite go John's way. And now his hand isn't looking as good.
😨
And now someone else raises. So John could fold and save the rest of his money for a later hand. Or he could call their raise and go all in.
The problem is that maybe 80% of his chips are in the pot. So he can fold and keep the extra 20%, but it'll be a very uphill battle from there. Or he can just take the chance that maybe he'll get lucky.
This is called being pot-committed.
Where because of the size of the pot, you pretty much have to stay in the game. You're committed to your course of action.
A lot of us feel that way in life. We've spent so long getting good at what we do, that even if we're not happy we feel like we're committed. We can't start over.
😞
Contrast that with sunk costs. A sunk cost is money that you've spent and that you're never going to get back. You can't let a sunk cost factor into your decision making, because it can cause you to throw good money after bad.
Time is the ultimate sunk cost. Once it's spent, you're never getting it back.
For most of us, we think we're pot committed in our lives, but we're confused. That time isn't in a pot that we may win. That time is gone. That time is a sunk cost. So you've spent 10 years in a career and you're 32 years old. Are you stuck in your career until you retire (another 25 years?)?
Or are you likely to work for another 50 years? In which case, you could have 3 or 4 careers in that time.
And John? Well, he went all in, hoping to get lucky. He didn't, and he was cleaned out.
PS. The only extra thing to add is that time is interesting because, even when we spend it poorly, there's usually something we get out of it. We learn something. We meet someone. We become the person we are today.
PPS. I only lasted a few hands longer than John. Maybe there's another lesson in here - that we shouldn't be down on ourselves when it takes us a while to learn something new. Another reason not to be too hard on yourself for decisions made 10 years ago.
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"How you doing man?" I asked.
"Oh, just living the dream." He said. It was clear he was doing anything but. He had a smile on his face and a coffee in his hand 🤵💼☕, but it was 9am, he'd been at the office for hours already and had left some time after midnight the night before. 🌙
"Sucks man," I said. "Just crushing it, eh?"
"Just crushing it." He nodded. The smile slipped away - and he walked into his office and shut the door.
First, that was probably 9 years ago. I don't know if associates even talk like that anymore.
Second, have you ever heard anyone say "living the dream" non-facetiously?
I'm curious and this is a serious question. Please hit reply and let me know.
Third, it's weird to me.
We all have dreams. And we're chasing them. And yet, the dreams we talk about (even if we're talking about it facetiously) are those of crushing it and getting crushed in turn. Is this truly what we want for ourselves?
Or did we want something else and this is just the path that we thought would get us there quickest? Or most reliably?
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🎺The trumpet sounded and I ordered my men to advance. I had the archers and artillery take the hilltop 🏹, with the spearman arrayed before them.
The enemy advanced. We were outnumbered. They crashed into my spearmen. Our line held, but barely. I knew it wouldn't last for long.
I ordered the archers and artillery to focus on the enemies flanks, and then I played my ace up the sleeve. ♠
I had my heavy cavalry swoop around and slam into the enemy from the side. They routed. And then the next unit routed. And then the next. Within the span of a few short heartbeats, the entire enemy had line folded. What had been close-fought to start had turned into a bloodbath.
💀
And me? I was addicted. 😬😬😬
This was Total War: Warhammer 2, and I hadn't been able to put it down for the four days since I started playing. I had trouble sleeping. I got sick. And frankly, I was a bit disgusted with myself (glorious victory(ies) notwithstanding).
This episode is about stopping addictions and breaking habits.
"Are you going to be happy if you have this ideal life? Or is being happy what's going to get you this ideal life?" I asked.
"Well, what came first, the chicken or the egg?" My client said. 😏
He sounded smug, as if that somehow settled it.
As if that was somehow enough of an excuse to justify further inaction.
Further stuckness.
"You know what? Let's take a second here." I said.
🤓⚠ (nerd-alert)
"Genetic drift happens naturally. Each new generation is a little bit different than their parents. The difference is random. Over (a lot of) time, the differences that improve survival and/or reproduction are the ones that stick. After enough of this change, you'll have a new species. Like a chicken."
"So at some point, there was the first chicken. That chicken came from a creature that was almost a chicken, but not quite a chicken. That first chicken was still born from an egg, which must have come first."
My client was silent.
"So, enough avoiding the question," I said. "Will having the ideal life make you happy? Or will being happy give you the ideal life?"
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"Well, you guys are all about average height" one of my buddies said to us.
"Hey," I protested as I stood up straight. "I'm not short."
In the process of unslouching, I probably grew 2-3 inches. Enough to go from average height to above average height. Not "tall" per se, but a bit above average.
My buddy looked at me, appraised me, and grunted.
"I guess you're right."
"Yeah man, just cause I slouch doesn't mean I'm short."
"You should stand up straight," he replied. "Girls like that."
😠😡
Girls like that? Girls LIKE that? What did this guy know? I just wanted girls to like me for who I was. And if I was a guy who slouched? They should like that!
Well, at the time, I failed to realize one critical thing - we're not static. Just because I slouched then doesn't mean that was who I was.
We're not fixed.
We change all the time.
Some times that change is as simple as standing up straight. Some times it's as important as finally thinking straight.
And some times it's as life-changing as finally playing yourself straight - following through on your commitments to yourself.
We're all changing all the time.
The most important question is NOT "who are you??"
The most important question is "who do you want to BECOME????"
... and if you're not sure? Drop me a line, I love to talk shop. 😊
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He had on a matching track suit. A shorter man. Earbuds in his ears. Little fanny pack (those are in style now, right?). And he stood there with his feet planted, his hands on his hips, and he was rotating his hips.
We were on the track. 🎽👟🏃♂️💨 So while it was totally 90s, it also wasn't totally weird ... just ... mostly weird. ️🤷♂ ️
It was clear he was serious about his experience. I assumed that he was going to settle into a nice saunter. Possibly with lots of up and down (as an aside, the up and down is just wasted movement for runners, ruining their efficiency).
Instead, he pressed a button on his watch and took off.
Really took off. 💨
And it wasn't his speed that really impressed me (although he was fast enough).
It's that he was giving 'er.
My god, I love seeing someone put in effort. Laying it all out.
And this man was laying. It. All. Out. 😡
He was running as if every dream he ever had was 100 yards in front of him, and as if every demon he ever had was on his heels.
And I just wanted to take off and fall in beside him.
There's something inspirational about the person who's willing to give it their all, the athlete who's willing to leave it all out on the field, the dreamer who's willing to really commit.
I'm reminded of something Seth Godin said a year ago:
Will you choose to matter?
Will you do work that matters so much, that they will miss you when you are gone?
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I'm pretty proud of myself. 🦚🦚😎
Not because of milestones I've hit, or stuff I've accomplished.
But because my laptop died and I didn't lose my shit.
It happened a few days ago, and I'm still feeling pride as I write that. I didn't lose my shit. I got on the phone with tech support and started started moving forward. Figuring out what to do about it. How to adjust my life and not skip a beat with Leader Rising.
It wasn't that long ago that I would have lost my shit.
Even the smallest things ("can you stop and pick up X on your way?") would draw an outrageous response. The problem was - I didn't have ANY buffer. Everything was balanced on a knife's edge. Which meant one small nudge pushed me over the edge.
Nothing ever goes perfectly. Especially not for long.
Not having buffer is not really an option.
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On our way home from the park yesterday, we stopped at a different park. And ran into some neighbours who were there with their kid. She kept playing quietly with some toys she had found.
I was chatting with the parents, and after a few minutes, I looked around and saw that Ronan was watching a group of older kids play a bit rough on the twirly-go-round. He looked conflicted.
I mentioned it.
After a moment, while I was still talking with one parent, the other one went over to their daughter. Next thing I know, she's walking over to my guy:
"Ronan, do you want to play with me?"
I don't even know if he said yes, but his body definitely did, as he stepped forward with a bashful smile.
It was yet another lesson in the importance of reaching out. That little girl made such a difference in Ro's day.
Who is someone you care about that you haven't spoken to in a while?
What if you were to drop them a note right now saying that you cared?
We discuss this and leadership within a team setting at work on today’s podcast.
Recently, I walked by a building that was being wrecked. There was a guy in an excavator-type thing (but with grabbier claws) and he was daintily picking at the building.
And of course there was some other dude standing there with a high-vis vest and a cigarette, just sort of watching.
A real value-add this extra guy.
I was wondering why they were working the way they were? Why was the driver being so timid? What was the extra guy doing?
There's a general progression as we learn something:
- We start in unconscious incompetence. We don't know what we don't know.
- Then we move to conscious incompetence, when we start to know what we don't know.
- Then after we've learned a bit, we move to conscious competence, where we know stuff, but it takes effort and doesn't happen by itself.
- At some point, we move to unconscious competence, where we don't even need to think about what we're doing.
Think about the skill of walking. For most of us, we're in unconscious competence. We don't think about walking, we just walk.
There's a real value in knowing where you are in the progression. I knew with respect to demolishing buildings that I was in unconscious incompetence. As I saw the driver push the claws into rubble he'd already cleared, it occured to me that maybe he was trying to break it further to make it easier to pack. Maybe that was important.
As I walked away, I saw a City of Toronto By-Law Officer approach.
It's not only important to realize where you are on the progression, it's important to think of where others are on the progression.
And it occurred to me - maybe they didn't know what they were doing either.
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My boy has a pretty neat tic tac toe set where you've got different sizes of pieces and they gobble each other up. He was too little 👶 when we inherited it and it got put away.
We recently took it out again.
I tried to explain the rules 📏, but he decided that all the kids wanted to hang out together in one square. All the mommies in another, and all the daddies in a different one.
🤷♂️
I just waited. When he finished, the two of us just sat at these little gobblers hanging out in the fun squares.
After a moment, I asked: What's next?
That question always comes.
Whether we're at work, in our relationships, in our family, in our play. You don't have to follow the rules, you can always make your own. But when you do create your own rules, you can bet people are going to ask what's next.
You don't need to have an answer. Some times it's better to NOT have an answer, just so you can focus on the journey.
Just be aware the question is coming.
And those of you who are parents can probably guess what happened with me and my boy. We knocked them all down and then did it again. 😊
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Tough day last week. Got some news that really bothered me. Had a hard time concentrating. Felt pretty down.
Wasn't that productive. Didn't get everything I needed to done. Wasn't really the person I wanted to be.
It happens.
As James Clear points out in Atomic Habits, we can't allow ourselves to fall off the wagon in times like this. Everyone has a day where they don't show up properly. That's fine, just do your best to show up properly tomorrow.
Because if you don't do it properly tomorrow, that's two in a row.
And two in a row is the start of a new habit.
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I'm reading Play by Stuart Brown, and he talks about a study of a group of seals. Of the 26 young seals that were killed by predators over a certain period of time, 24 of those seals were playing beyond the vicinity of their parents.
💀
In evolutionary terms, playing had a huge cost.
A seal pup that played was more likely to be killed than a seal pup that didn't. ☠
In that case, we'd expect seals not to play - unless of course, playing had an evolutionary advantage that outweighed the costs.
Which it clearly does, since seals still play.
🎭🦦🎴🧸
When you look all across the animal kingdom, you see so many examples of animals playing.
Humans are no different.
We all play (at least until it's taught, frightened, or beaten out of us).
Now, we don't need to worry about being killed by predators while we play. So maybe next time you have the urge to play and you don't indulge, ask yourself what predator you're afraid of...
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I turned to my father-in-law. “You’re going to need to put your plans to build your buggy on hold,” I said, “after I win the LOTTO MAX tonight, I’m going to build a hobbit house. And I need you to be the general contractor.”
I was serious.
Let’s be clear - I knew I wasn’t going to win the lottery. But when we buy a lottery ticket, we allow ourselves to dream about what we would do with the money.
You see, up until recently I believed this was a good thing. I thought it was a benefit - you get to daydream about all the things you would do if money was no object.
This week, however, I paid attention to how I felt when I talked about what I would do with the money.
What I found is that it opens up the gap between that future, where I have all this money, and my current reality.
It paints a picture that I don’t have enough right now.
It makes me focus on what I don’t have.
“Who you are - what you think, feel, and do, what you love, is the sum of what you focus on” - Winifred Gallagher
And here I was focusing on what I didn’t have.
That is not ideal.
Most of us ask ourselves: is it worth it in terms of the money?
What we should be asking ourselves is: is it worth it in terms of our attention?
What are you focused on?
Join us this week as we discuss.
I've got a really reasonable son. For a 3 year old at least.
He has this uncanny ability though. He can tell when I'm 100% set on a rule, and when I'm not - when I just think it would be a good idea. When I'm set, he usually complies (although it's not always an easy process). 🤷♂️
When I'm not set, he knows (somehow).
He pushes, and prods, and asks, and cajoles, and just does it and then waits to see what will happen. In these moments, I find myself asking:
Am I setting a precedent?
🤔
And when he's up super early and I want him to go back to sleep but he won't because he doesn't want to be alone and it's so easy to just take him into the front room and sleep together, I ask myself:
Am I setting a precedent?
🤔😔
It's easier to follow a rule 100% of the time than it is 98% of the time. He can smell that 2% and he turns it into 80. There's this weird balance about being predictable and following the rules you've set, and leaning into your compassion and understanding when it's okay to bend.
I don't have the answer.
But sometimes I realize that he's not giving me a hard time, he's having a hard time.
In those moments, I'm invariably a better father.
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If you're at all like me, you like to optimize things. 🤓
This may even extend to your life.
I like to have everything set out. I have exactly as many obligations as I can handle. Exactly as much time with my family as I need. Exactly as much time for exercise as I need. Exactly everything.
And it works great.
Until it doesn't.
You see, I balance everything keenly on a knife's edge. Which means all it needs is for one thing to be out of whack, and my house of cards 🃏 comes crumbling down.
The solution?
Designing buffer into our lives.
We know life throws us curve balls ⚾, so why don't we plan for them?
Then on those days when everything goes well, you've got an extra minute to snuggle with a loved one. Or nap. Or pick up a book.
I'll build in this magical buffer ...
… just as soon as my current commitments finish. 🤦♂️
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