“If you don’t manage yourself, someone else is going to manage you.” At a recent conference I was speaking to a man who had worked for a large company and had been downsized after about twenty years. The loss of his job had been devastating to him. He felt there was nothing else he was qualified to do for a living and had absolutely no idea what to do next. He had gone home, tried to regroup and went back to looking for a job the way he had twenty years before – by looking through job listings. Nothing appealed to him.
Fortunately, a good friend of his sat him down to talk through all possible options. Doing this helped the man...
It is you – and no one else that creates your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. – Peter Shepard Yesterday my colleague called me up for a vent session. She had prepared a really complicated tax filing for a client and the client responded by sending a list of about fifteen things she thought was wrong with it. Well, the clients concerns were all unfounded and my colleague patiently and politely addressed each and every complaint. The client apologized for her snippy e-mail and stated that taxes made her anxious.
It was really nice to get an acknowledgement from the client that her behavior was unacceptable. Everyone gets snippy once in a while and its entirely forgivable. Unfortunately, this particular client...
People who are ‘brutally honest’ are more interested in brutality than in honesty. – Alan Cohen Every now and then a new attorney reaches out to me and asks for career advice. I am always happy to help, since mentoring is rare in the legal profession and I remember how difficult entering the profession was for me almost twenty years ago. It is not uncommon for attorneys of all experience levels to need support, either. After all, a competitive firm culture can turn into a cutthroat one fairly easily. There is a good reason why there are the same number of attorneys leaving the profession each year as entering it. The legal work isn’t the problem – it’s the fact that...