“Oh John,” she said, “the sad truth is Frank simply drank himself to death.”

“Did he ever try AA or another recovery group?” John asked.

“Oh, for heaven sakes, John, no—he wasn’t that bad.”

This is perhaps a not so funny way of highlighting the fact that most alcoholics don’t recover. For many it is simply because they, and perhaps those around them, never are willing to admit that they have a problem.

As many of us now know, lawyers have a much higher rate of incidence of alcoholism than those in the overall population. One group determined that the rate of alcoholism among lawyers is twice that among adults generally. ¹

I believe this is true for two reasons. First, the nature of our business leaves us vulnerable to high rates of depression, stress, long hours and sleepless nights. Relief from alcohol is at times the easy answer.

Second, many who do drink alcoholically have developed, through years of training, strong streaks of independence and at times perhaps arrogance; as a result, they simply can’t and won’t believe that they can’t handle the problem on their own. Because of this, the percentage of alcoholic lawyers is skewed because many simply never try to seek help.

Legal Training Fosters Unhealthy Behaviors

I didn’t become an alcoholic because of practice-induced stress. Looking back, I realize that I was an alcoholic long before I even decided to attend law school. But I did develop a certain sense of invincibility with my legal expertise. The piece of paper that told me I was a “professional” helped me believe that I wasn’t one of “them,” and that if I ever did develop problems, I’d deal with them.

Many believe that substance abuse among lawyers actually begins when they’re in college.² What factors then lead to substance abuse?

According to Professor Dubin, at least 10% of lawyers have some sort of problem with a form of addictive behavior. Though this is a high number, it closely echoes society as a whole. But during lawyers’ careers, this percentage increases to an estimated 20%. In fact, short-term or chronic symptoms of depression, stress or other self-destructive behavior can, at one time or another, affect 33% of legal professionals.

Others correlate this increase from pre-law school to career involvement with the competitive nature of our business—we’re driven to achieve material success and prestige, and need to feel as if we can pull our weight with billable hours.

Several years ago, at an ABA-sponsored program on stress management and burnout, Standish McCleary, a psychologist and former lawyer, identified some reasons why lawyers are above the norm for depression and often become addicted:³

• Time constraints and deadlines
• The high-stakes nature of the work which can cause clients to lose their property, freedom, and even life
• High expectations for level of expertise and
• Consistent scrutiny and critical judgment of work from opposing counsel or courts
• The conflict-driven legal process (“opposing counsel must always be determined to prove us wrong”)
• An ever-present threat of malpractice
• An understandable and at times admirable tendency to assume the clients’ burdens
• The demise of professional cordiality and loss of close fellowships
• Professional training requiring us to notice and anticipate the negative and downside in all situations

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Even sole practitioners may represent clients with international problems and international clients with problems in the US. Today it is common for lawyers in every kind of firm to work with clients and agencies in other countries, deal with vendors around the world, and have co-workers or employees from different countries. In this practice environment, lawyers must be culturally competent—to operate effectively with people in other cultures.

Cultural Competence Needs To Be Clearly Defined

Cultural competence (sometimes referred to as “cultural intelligence”) is the ability to adapt, work and manage successfully in new and unfamiliar cultural settings. Culturally competent people can “grasp, reason and behave effectively” when faced with culturally diverse situations, where assumptions, values and traditions differ from those to which they are accustomed.2 They recognize that culture may impact the way people from different backgrounds perceive the same facts. When several competing interpretations of a situation may be valid, they can place apparent contradictions in cultural contexts and deal with the ambiguity.

Cultural competence has particular importance for lawyers:

• Whose practice involves interactions with clients, lawyers, agencies or vendors in other countries
• Who represent multinational or foreign clients
• Who manage or participate in global client teams or project teams
• Who take expatriate assignments, internal secondments (i.e., short-term assignments to one of the firm’s offices in another country), or extended business travel to other countries
• Who hire lawyers or manage law offices in other countries
• Who evaluate the performance of or make promotion decisions about lawyers in other countries.

It is also becoming critical for in-house counsel to be culturally intelligent. At a recent meeting of more than 100 senior corporate counsel, 38.2% said that readiness to meet the demands of global growth was the greatest challenge facing their legal departments.3 Today’s corporate counsel need to “think beyond the perspectives of the home country,” and many corporations are actively recruiting lawyers who have international work experience and multicultural points of view.4

Understand Cultural Competence—Which Goes Beyond Diversity

While the legal profession now devotes considerable resources to diversity training and initiatives, cultural competence goes beyond the kind of diversity that is usually addressed. American diversity programming deals with cultural differences but the focus is on diversity within the context of American culture. Cultural competence places diversity in a global framework. It involves the ability to function in settings where American values and norms do not prevail, and refers to the ability to navigate through a strange environment when you are the cultural outsider.

Employers who recognize the value of cultural competence and develop their lawyers’ cultural intelligence can have a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace. By preparing lawyers to meet the especially demanding nature of working and managing in a global environment, employers can minimize culture-based misunderstandings and errors, leading to better quality legal work and higher satisfaction for both clients and lawyers.

Improving cultural competence can also result in greater profitability. In a survey of 450 managers in multi-national companies, McKinsey found that effective management of cultural diversity in a global setting was highly correlated with financial success as measured by profit per employee.5 In companies with proficient cross-cultural management, they found that foreign office profits increased through higher productivity, more cross-selling, client expansion, work referrals from other offices, and leveraging of global resources.

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Pop quiz: how many “down” years (measured by the S&P500TM) did the U.S. stock market experience from 1982 to the end of 1999? Answer: just one—in 1991 when the market dropped a modest 3.17%. What about the heart-stopping “crash” on October 19, 1987? Despite that 25% drop on a single day (measured by many indices of the market), the year’s markets ended “up.”

If you were a little slow to realize the market had turned “bull” in the early 80s and didn’t begin investing until early 1985, and if you hadn’t time to consult your financial crystal ball about the bear market of 2000-2002, $10,000 invested in the S&P500TM at the beginning of 1985 would have grown to more than $150,000 by the end of 2007 for an annual, compound return of +12.1%. During this specific 23-year period, there were just four “down” years and 19 “up” years. Twelve of those 19 “up” returns were in the “double digits.” Two of the four “down” returns were similarly “double digits.”

Let’s make the financial statistics a little more relevant. Suppose you retired in 1985 during the early stages of a long-term bull market with $1 million of capital invested in the S&P 500TM and that you planned to pull out $75,000 a year. After eight years, your portfolio would be worth almost $2.5, more than $8.7 million on 12/31/99 and $9.2 million on 12/31/07. In fact, during the 1985-2007 period, you could have regularly pulled out $155,000 a year and still have more than $1.3 million at the end of 2007.

On the other hand, if you had retired at the beginning of 2000 with the same capital and yearly withdrawal plan, eight years later, on 12/31/07, your portfolio would be worth just $337,000. Even without the current slump in the stock market (as of July 2008), it’s virtually certain that you would outlive your money. In retrospect, to end up those eight years with your original principal intact, you could only have withdrawn $15,000 a year toward your retirement needs. Timing really is everything!

Even if we could “time” the market (and there’s substantial evidence that timing does not work), most of us envision a specific time during which we’ll transition to living off our capital rather than relying on our billable hours. If we could somehow know the market will soon peak (or trough), we might be willing to adjust our retirement date to accommodate our remarkable prescience. Most likely, however, we’re going to have to take our chances with market undulations and cycles. Therefore, we need distribution strategies that can increase the chances that we will have sufficient income throughout our retirement years.

Stratify Investments Into “Buckets”

One strategy involves first sorting out the various categories of investments in the $1 million retirement portfolio. For most, funds will span the traditional asset classes of equity and fixed investments, including cash, money market, certificates of deposit, short/medium/long-term bonds, mutual fund, ETFs, individual stocks, REITs, real estate, etc. Each of these investments has historic characteristics of risk (as measured by volatility) and return, and these critical factors tend to be inversely proportional.1

From these categories, create a series of three or more conceptual “buckets.” Bucket One holds cash and near-cash investments with durations of less than one year. Ideally, this should be planned two to three years before retiring. If necessary, existing assets can be re-positioned to assure that Bucket One holds sufficient resources to meet at least one year’s retirement income requirement, and possibly as much as three years’ income. This helps assure that volatile investments such as stocks, mutual funds, and even intermediate/long-term bonds will not have to be cashed in during market periods that depress liquidity values. Bucket One is also used—at least conceptually—to receive all sources of income including social security, other retirement income resources such as monthly annuity payments, as well as interest, dividends and gains from the other buckets.

Bucket Two holds investment categories that are typically associated with medium-term holding periods (three to five years), such as bond mutual funds and balanced mutual funds. The income this bucket produces is poured into Bucket One. Similarly, as these medium-term investments are sold and reinvested, gains will also revert to Bucket One until sufficient reserves are re-established (again, one to three years’ worth of income needs).

Bucket Three holds the longer-term investments that have the highest volatility of all portfolio assets, but also have the highest potential for long-term gains. Dividends and gains will flow back to Bucket One, once again subject to the reserve needs of that bucket.

Additional buckets can be used according to the type and diversity of portfolio investments. As you can see, this approach does not dictate the nature of your investments; that depends on your risk tolerance and preference to manage (or not manage) a portfolio. Rather, the “bucket” strategy is about stratifying your investments along the risk/reward continuum, allowing you to consume income from those investments with the least likelihood to lose principal while giving higher risk/higher return investments sufficient time to perform on their return expectation. In essence, the bucket method describes a process for organizing your investments for maximum lifetime sufficiency, whatever those investments might be. Note that the need for ongoing investment management and occasional reallocation still applies.

Assess Your Risk Tolerance

A second strategy involves a little less discipline and organizational skill. Recognizing that a typical 65-year old has a 20-year life expectancy, you would take 80-85% of your current $1 million portfolio and invest according to your risk tolerance for maximum income, living on investment return and principal over those 20 years. The 15-20% portion not already allocated is specifically invested with a 20-year time horizon, presumably with greater risk tolerance than that which will be applied to the larger segment of the $1 million portfolio. While most of us would not employ an all-equity allocation to our entire portfolio, it’s entirely possible that such a strategy could be reasonably applied to this 15-20% segment invested for the long-term.

At age 85, only two conditions prevail: either you succumbed to life expectancy statistics, or you survived them. If you are still alive, you have—by the formula suggested below—completely exhausted your 20-year income portfolio and now look to your “I beat my life expectancy” portfolio to take care of your income needs for the rest of your life. For example, a $150,000 initial allocation of the original $1 million could grow to $400,000 at an average 5% return; grow to $700,000 at an average 8% return; and grow to $1 million at an average 10% return. If then converted to an immediate annuity at age 85, the monthly income could range from $5,300/month based on $400,000 to as much as $13,250/month based on $1 million on a single 85 year old male. A joint annuity (with the monthly payment for as long as either spouse is alive) for the lives of spouses (both age 85) range from $3,950 based on $400,000 and $9,875 based on $1 million.[2]

As for the first 20 years in which you are distributing income and principal, here’s the recommended formula, assuming a constant 5% return:

Year 1: distribute 1/20 of the initial value (1/20 of $850,000 = $42,500)

Year 2: distribute 1/19 of remaining value (1/19 of $847,875 = $44,625)

Year 3: distribute 1/18 of remaining value (1/18 of $843,413 = $46,856)

etc. until…

Year 20: distribute remaining value (1/1 of $107,395 = $107,395)

If your long-term investment skill (and a cooperative market) results in an average 8% return, the annual income ranges from the same initial $42,500 up to a 20th year portfolio liquidation value of $183,417. Needless to say, however, the market does not increase in smooth increments of return! Volatility will have a significant effect on each year’s balance for which the applicable distribution percentage will be paid. Thus, average returns are used here to illustrate the methodology, but investment professionals should be consulted for “volatility studies” that can suggest probabilities of success based on different investment strategies within the 20-year timeframe.

Que Sera, Sera?

These two distribution models do not take into account considerations for income taxes, or the possibility that you may have testamentary intentions that work against the concept of “spending” principal.

But they do exemplify the types of strategies that can help us have sufficient income for the much longer life expectancies than, on average, our parents experienced. Unless we’re fortunate enough to start with a substantial amount of retirement capital relative to our income needs, those needs cannot be satisfied with conventional thinking such as “buy bonds and live off the interest.” Similarly, “Whatever will be, will be” is not an investment strategy. We will need to more actively explore retirement solutions that can produce adequate income for the 30 or 40 years of thriving through and beyond mid-life to which we’re all entitled.

__________________

FOOTNOTES

1. Money market accounts and short-term bonds tend to assure safety of principal in exchange for nominally low rates of return. The July 1, 2008 90-day T-Bill yield of ~1.8% can today be considered a “safe” rate of return with no risk and very short duration. To achieve a rate of return much higher than this, a certain amount of risk (either volatility and/or liquidity risk or penalty-for-early-withdrawal risk) will need to be taken. While risk is a key factor in our investment decisions, exposure to risk is directly proportional to time: the quicker you need your money back, the greater the risk you won’t achieve your objective. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that no rolling 20-year period since 1926 (i.e. 1926-1945, 1927-1946 etc) has produced a negative return when underlying investments were in the broad equity market.

2. These suggested immediate annuity monthly income value are calculated by insurers based on mortality tables in effect in 2008 and are not necessarily indicative of rates that might prevail 20 years from now.

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Just ten years ago, this experience was a big part of life for new litigation associates. Conference rooms like this existed in most every large firm with a litigation practice. Today electronic file review has made these practices obsolete. No longer do associates need to gather in cramped conference rooms or drafty warehouses; instead, they review files in the comfort and quiet of their offices. More efficient, right?

Later that day, I met a first-year associate who had been a part of that hard-copy document review. She said it was one of the best learning opportunities and most memorable work experiences she had had since arriving at the firm eight months earlier. Though grueling, she said it had been fun to work with fellow associates in one room. Often, the partner stopped by to see how they were doing, let them know what was going on in the case, and share a piece of late-night pizza. Senior associates rolled up their sleeves and dug into the boxes alongside them and over the course of several long nights, shared stories about reviews they had done as new associates. She learned more in two weeks than she had in the previous six months because she was exposed to others’ ideas, had the chance to interact with more senior lawyers, and developed deeper relationships with her team members. If she had been sitting in her office viewing documents on her monitor, she would have missed all this interpersonal contact and consequent learning. Communicating by email offers little time for relationship building.

Technology Gets In The Way Of Crucial Relationship-Building

I’m not advocating a return to old-style document reviews, but it is important to consider the impact of this new approach to practice on associates’ learning and quality of experience. Because associates’ lives are ruled by technology and billable hours, they learn quickly that hours trump excellence much of the time. Social interaction is rare. Many associates don’t enjoy meaningful contact with senior lawyers who should be sharing their knowledge and experience. Is it a surprise that associates are a bit cynical about their experiences in larger firms? Are these the ideal conditions for the development of loyalty and commitment to an employer?

Yet rather than see this cynicism as a consequence of changes to the way law is practiced in large firms, many blame “Generation Y” associates. They are referred to as the “trophy generation” and derided for growing up believing that everyone deserved to be the best, regardless of actual performance.

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Sixty-nine law firms participated in this analysis. McBassi collected data on numerous aspects of leadership, management, and development practices within these firms. Data were simultaneously collected on law firms’ performance relative to their competitors in five separate areas:2

1. Profitability
2. Ability to attract employees
3. Ability to retain key employees
4. Client satisfaction
5. Business development

A statistical analysis was then undertaken to identify the specific aspects of leadership, management, and development practices that were most significantly correlated with law firm performance.

Every law firm can improve each of these factors. The first step toward doing so is to quantify and measure your firm’s current strengths and weaknesses on the factors discussed throughout this paper.

Understand Our Measurement Methodology

The statistical analysis identifies the specific aspects of leadership, management, and development practices that have the greatest impact on law firm profitability, ability to attract employees, and the other success variables noted above.

For the purpose of this analysis, McBassi used a modified version of its Human Capital Capability Scorecard (HCCS). This is a research-based measurement framework that quantifies and measures the quality of the “human capital management” (HCM)—the leadership, management, and development practices—of firms through carefully constructed survey instruments.

The measures that emerge from these instruments are then used to predict key outcomes—both financial and non-financial—of firms. This methodology is used by McBassi’s clients to spot important deficiencies, remedy them, and thereby improve their future performance.3

This framework, which is summarized below in Figure 1, measures five major aspects of firms’ leadership, management, and development practices: 1) quality of leadership practices; 2) practices that foster employee engagement; 3) measures of how accessible knowledge is to employees of the firm; 4) the firm’s ability to optimize its workforce’s productivity, and; 5) measures of the learning capacity of the firm.

Figure 1. Human Capital Capability Framework

A brief synopses of each of the 24 factors included in the framework is provided in Table 1. Those factors that were found to be most significantly correlated with law firms’ success are highlighted in yellow (more detail on these findings is provided in the following section).

Table 1. Description of Factors Measured in Law Firms

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In a typical application of McBassi’s HCCS methodology, all employees within a firm are invited to respond to an online questionnaire (approximately 80 questions) that captures information on specific elements of each of the 24 factors outlined above in Table 1.4. Their responses provide information on the firm’s strengths and weaknesses in each area.

We then examine statistically the relationship between employees’ responses and a variety of measures of “business outcomes.” These outcome measures can be quite varied, including: measures of employees’ engagement and intention to stay with their firm, client satisfaction, business development, and profitability.

Examining the statistical linkage between leadership, management, and development (HCM) practices and the firm’s business outcomes enables a firm to identify those specific practices that are the most critical determinants of the business outcomes that the firm would most like to improve. This provides a foundation for developing fact-based, objective recommendations to help the firm improve its success.

For the purpose of helping the ALA to understand the relationship between leadership practices and firm success across multiple law firms, we modified the process outlined above in order to capture key information from a large number of firms. Rather than developing highly detailed measures based on responses from multiple employees within a single firm, we captured more general information from a single respondent within each firm. Responses were received from a total of sixty-nine (69) law firms, with most individual respondents reporting that they hold senior administrative positions within their firm.5

In addition to assessing their firms’ maturity on each of the leadership and development factors listed in Table 1, the respondents were also asked to assess how well their firm performed relative to their competition on five outcomes:6

1. Ability to attract employees
2. Success in retaining key employees
3. Client satisfaction
4. Business development
5. Profitability

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You know you are unhappy; what you don’t know is what to do about it. At this stage, the most natural questions lawyers ask themselves are, “What kind of job can I get with my law degree and experience? Who will hire me?” Those questions won’t help you. Whether you are in law school or out in the “real world” practicing law, you need to shift your initial focus.

In the 17 years I have coached lawyers, I have learned that it is more powerful for you to ask, “What do I want to do?” Stop looking to others to tell you what you can do next. My guess is it hasn’t worked that well for you anyway. Instead, start directing the course of your career and creating your own personal list of options. As I mentioned in the previous article, there are many opportunities for lawyers within and outside the law, and you really can find success on your own terms. But you have to start by knowing what those terms are and what is right for you before forging ahead to the job search stage. To do this, spend some time figuring out what will make you happy. Giving yourself the gift of time to do some self-assessment is absolutely critical to charting your own course and finding work that you will enjoy.

Transitions Aren’t Always Comfortable—But They’re Necessary

Does the idea that there are no immediate answers to your urgent question of what to do next depress you? Does the prospect of unlimited options overwhelm and possibly even paralyze you? If so, it might help you to know that those feelings are very normal and common. Just the thought of making a nontraditional career change can make most lawyers feel vulnerable, isolated, and insecure. On top of that, the notion that there are no quick answers can be overwhelming. Lawyers often lead extremely pressured and hectic lives with little time for anything else. Not knowing what you want, worrying that you may not be able to find a job that will pay you as much, and the fear of telling family, friends and colleagues that you want to make a change can all contribute to feeling paralyzed and staying stuck. I encourage you to put up with the unavoidable discomfort and uncertainties that come with transition and take this next step anyway. You may want to find some support, though, so consider talking to someone who is also going through a career transition so you can share thoughts and impressions, or perhaps work with a career coach.

Answer A Five-Question Self-Assessment

The following questions and exercises will assist you with some soul-searching and reveal a lot of key information about you, why your current job is not a good fit, and what you need to have in your next career to be happy. It’s the fundamental first step to crafting you own, personal definition of a successful career. As Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the popular What Color is Your Parachute?, explains, “Most job-hunters who fail to find their dream job fail not because they lack information about the job-market, but because they lack information about themselves.” ¹ I suggest you get a journal to record and process your answers and ideas.

1. What isn’t working for you? This question helps you figure out whether you are in the wrong career or just in the wrong job. If you are already sure you no longer want to practice law at all, it will help you begin to hone in on what to avoid in the next career choice. That’s helpful because if you have not identified what you dislike now, you may be likely to experience that same problem elsewhere.

Think about your current job and identify the root(s) of the problem. Be specific; think about it from all angles: the work you are doing, the environment, your typical day, what’s missing. Now do the same thing for any prior jobs you have had as a lawyer. Many miserable lawyers have met with me for the first time feeling so burned out that the only option they can see is to leave the law completely. After doing some self assessment, they sometimes discover that the cause of their misery is actually the people with whom they are working, the schedule they are keeping, and/or the area of law they are practicing. Making a few changes allowed them to practice law in a way that they loved.

2. What is working for you? Now think about what you enjoy in your current job. It’s easy to forget the good things when you are dealing with negative challenges and living in the stress cycle. Again, think about it from all angles and get specific. Go back in time and do the same thing for any prior jobs, legal and nonlegal, you have had in the past.

3. Why did you go to law school? Take a moment to reconnect with your original motivations for taking the LSAT and investing three years of your life and a lot of money to venture down this path. Was it because you wanted to do some good in the world or because you didn’t know what else to do? Did you seek the prestige and high pay commonly associated with being a lawyer? Maybe you come from a family of lawyers. Maybe no one in your family had ever gone to law school before you. Perhaps you were attracted by the intellectual stimulation it promised. Whatever the reason, reacquaint yourself with your original reason(s). These underlying motivations are clues to what is most important to you as you move forward.

4. What is your definition of success? This is very personal: only you can decide how to define a successful career and life. As author and columnist Anna Quindlen wrote, “When your success looks good to the world but doesn’t feel good in your heart, it isn’t success at all.” ² To answer this question, I invite you to dig a little deeper and take a look at eight different components of your life that have a major impact on what will make you happy in the long run. I talk about these eight career factors in a series of articles that I wrote for previous issues of The Complete Lawyer, and will reference relevant articles after each point.

● Your Stage of Adult Development. Whether you are at a turning point or in a building stage has a tremendous impact on how you view choices and make decisions (The 8 Critical Turning Points Of Your Life).

● Your Natural Talents and Abilities. Think about how you are hardwired and what you naturally do well. If you work against your abilities, work feels like labor and tasks can feel like torture. If you work with them, everything is easier and more fun. Talents are completely different from acquired knowledge, skills, and interests. You cannot change them and you need to know what they are (What Are Your Natural Talents And Abilities).

The sad truth is that many people often find themselves in jobs that do not allow them to capitalize and utilize their strengths. In a recent Gallup survey of more than 10 million people worldwide, only one-third of workers said that they have the opportunity in their jobs to do what they do best every day. ³ However, those people who do have the opportunity to use their strengths in the workplace are “six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life” than their co-workers.⁴

● Your Skills and Life Experience. This refers to what you have learned in life, your expertise. Unlike natural abilities, which are set for life, skills can be practiced and learned. On the flipside, if you don’t use them you can lose them (What Are Your Options? Exploring Alternative Careers).

● Interests and Fascinations. Consider what draws your attention, and gives passion and energy to your life (What Are Your Options? Exploring Alternative Careers).

● Your Core Values. What do you think is worth doing in life? What you hold most near and dear to your heart? (How Core Values & Family Of Origin Impact Your Career).

● Your Family of Origin. Think about the messages about work and success that you received from your family (How Core Values & Family Of Origin Impact Your Career).

● Interpersonal Style. This refers to your personality and preferences, and how you interact with those around you. (Match Your Personality With Your Job).

● Your Goals. Ask yourself what you want to do in life, and what you want to accomplish (Use Your Long-Term Goals To Motivate You).

Once you have examined these various aspects of your life, go one step further and create your personal vision statement (Your Personal Vision Statement: A Template For Change). You can really have fun with this part: play around and discover what your ideal workday would look like.

At the end of this process you will know more about what is important to you and what you really want to be doing. Then you will be ready to decide if you are going to be able to achieve those things as a lawyer, or if you need to look elsewhere. For example, would switching practice areas be a possibility? Working as a lawyer doing labor and employment law could be as different from being a divorce lawyer as it is from many of the non-legal jobs. Or maybe you still like practicing law but it takes so much out of you that there is no time left for anything else. If you could find a way to have more work/life balance, you might actually like practicing law again.

Don’t give up on being a lawyer until you have done some self-assessment and examined the possibilities for change. In the next article we will take a look at some nontraditional ways of practicing law that you can consider in the mix.

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The truth is, none of us can throw a switch and create a different world. None of us can assume that every client we represent will take us to the pinnacle of our profession. And we have to accept, albeit reluctantly, that luck and good fortune, rather than hard work and application, may be the factors that tip the scales in our favor.

Nevertheless, we aren’t powerless. The whole idea of thinking about yourself as a brand, understanding yourself as a brand, and planning your future as a brand is to shape and evolve your image and persona so you can influence how you are perceived in the world, how you do business, and how to move yourself and your firm to a different place.

If this sounds commercial, it is. We are discussing marketing, not the law. We assume you are a good lawyer. We also assume you are a business person and your business matters. So let’s move on.

Visioning Isn’t Magic—And It Works

Psychologists who work with baseball pitchers, professional golfers and Olympic fencers, high jumpers and even weightlifters say the same things to their clients: “Imagine you can do it. Imagine yourself doing it. Imagine doing it now. Now do it!”

This is the art of visualization—the art of seeing yourself; seeing yourself succeeding in your event; and seeing yourself as the victor, taking the prize, wearing the medal, hearing the applause of the crowds. It’s the same technique your high school coach used when he said, “Imagine the ball going through the hoop! Now do it!”

It’s a simple technique, but curiously effective.

Sports psychologists say it isn’t magic: your mental images make your goals a reality because the process of visioning “pre-patterns” your actions. Then, your body somewhat automatically follows suit. As the psychologists say, if you can visualize it, you dramatically increase your ability to make it happen.

We use a similar technique in brand development. We even call it visioning. But we don’t look at the here and now. We aren’t trying to pre-pattern a lawyer’s behavior in the court room or the conference room. That’s for other consultants. Instead, we focus on the future. We work with our clients to project and visualize what they can become and what their organizations can become if everything they do happens the right way.

Imagine The Outcome

If you do everything right, and you and your partners perform to the best of your ability, and all of you achieve success, and your shared successes are everything you dreamed and imagined, what happened?
What did you actually do to make success happen?

What did you do that is different from what you are doing now? How did things change or improve from before? What are you doing now that you didn’t do before? What is it about you personally—and about your firm—that changed? And what did you do, personally, physically and emotionally, to make these changes happen?

These questions—and your answers—are designed to take you into the future where success is achieved, and then to work backward in time to identify what you did to make change happen, to encourage change and growth in your firm, and to motivate your colleagues, partners, associates and staff. The process also isolates your involvement and the involvement of everyone critical to the success of your business.

And yes, it may sound abstract. But the process is very real.

Personally, you can guide yourself through a process like this. You can also guide your firm. The principles are the same; only the scale is different.

Solidify Your Goals And Ideas

Once you have visualized your goals and floated ideas about how to make them happen, write them down. As you record the process, you are actually defining a plan for growth and evolution:

You imagined: We are very successful with corporate clients.

You decided: We must attract more corporate clients.

You determined: Here are five ways we can use our personal skills, expertise and experience to approach and talk to corporate prospects.

Is this realistic? Yes.

Now you have a vision, an objective, and a plan.

Isn’t it simplistic? Yes, but simple is good. After all, most people—and most lawyers—are good at making simple things complicated. Trite? Well, you be the judge of that. Let’s face it: If you already had a process and a plan to manage marketing, you wouldn’t be reading this article—you’d be implementing your plan. And if you knew what you wanted to achieve and how to achieve it, you would be doing that as well; you wouldn’t need this advice. And if you thought your firm could never change and never grow, well, maybe you need to think about that. As the sports psychologists say, maybe your issue is you.

Make It Happen

As you think about what you have envisioned, you must think about how to make it happen. That’s reality. Fortunately, you are prepared for that. You are informed and aware.

You already know everything about your firm. You know the ground rules. You know the patterns, habits and successes. You know what you personally have achieved. You know what your partners, lawyers and associates have achieved. You know their expertise as well as your practice areas, track record, preferences and passions. And if you have done your homework, you also know everything about your image, your reputation, and your standing in the legal and business communities.

Once you have been through a visioning process, these conceptions will change. As a result, you will identify a new future—or an evolved future. You will think seriously about what you must do to make your future happen. As for how, that’s for you and your partners to decide.

Perhaps you hire new lawyers. Perhaps you attend new conferences. Perhaps you expand your personal and professional interests into new fields. Perhaps you hire a marketing professional. Perhaps you move your offices. Perhaps you write more articles (the articles you really wanted to write). Perhaps you tell the truth to your partners—and yourself. Perhaps you join a different association. Perhaps you write a speech. Perhaps you hire a public relations professional. Perhaps you pick a fight with a white-glove, silk-stocking firm. Perhaps you accept different briefs. Perhaps you talk to different clients. Perhaps you merge. Perhaps you go back to school.

We are extrapolating. All these ideas are programs. The decisions are yours to make. If you don’t know how, seek help.

Above all, we encourage you to put the process in motion.

Once you’ve seen what the future may hold—once you have had a glimmer of what the future may hold—it’s very difficult, if not impossible to turn back.

And why would you?

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Are you living your life your way? Is your career what you want it to be? How do you feel when you think about going to the office? Is it with a sense of excitement and anticipation for what you will be doing, or does it feel like drudgery and something that you have to do to make money? This series is all about what you can do to ensure you have the kind of life you want—where you wake up and look forward to your day, and at the end of the day feel fulfilled and satisfied with what you have accomplished. You can have your life and your career your way.

Over the past months I have taken you through a process of thinking about various aspects of your life by considering eight critical success factors that make up your Personal Vision. I hope you have been able to do all or even some of the exercises and explored how you envision your life, picking up information about yourself along the way. The next step is to combine what you have learned and integrate those pieces of information into a Personal Vision Statement. Your Personal Vision Statement is a unique, complete expression of what is important to you and how you want your life to be. It will be the guide for crafting your life going forward.

You Need To Both Analyze And Synthesize

The creative process for creating a Personal Vision uses both the left and the right sides of the brain. Almost all of the exercises I have recommended previously have tapped into the left side of your brain, the part that is logical and arranges things in order. As a lawyer, you use that part of your brain even more than most people. Every time you analyze a client’s case, research, write a memo or brief, prepare for a deposition or for trial, or simply debate, you are relying heavily on the left side of your brain. The left brain operates like a computer and works through words; it plans, figures things out and tells you what makes sense.

But you also have to engage the right side of your brain, which thinks holistically, solves problems in a nonlinear fashion, and discovers new ways to put together disparate elements. The right brain is not tied to the present, to facts or realities; it has insight into new possibilities and can solve different problems simultaneously. I’m sure you have had times when you are more relaxed and all of a sudden a solution to a problem you have been wrestling with springs to mind, seemingly out of nowhere. That is your right brain providing you with an insight. It has been behind the scenes subconsciously working on the problem for you.

Many lawyers I work with are skeptical at first when I talk about using their right brains. But the right brain can be a great friend when you are creating a life that is truly yours rather than continuing down the path that others have set for you. You’ll need both sides of your brain to write your Personal Vision Statement—and you can do it in three steps.

Step One: Gather Information

First you need to put your left brain back to work again. Gather together the results of all the exercises you have done. (If you have not done them all, then take some time and complete them before doing this.) Spread them out in front of you so that you can see what you have written. There should be information about you in all eight areas: your abilities (hard-wiring), personality, skills, interests, values, goals, stage of adult development, and family of origin. You can create a Personal Vision Statement without one of those areas, but it will be incomplete. It’s very much like preparing a recipe and leaving out an important ingredient—you won’t get what you really want.

Once you have the information in view, think about what your purpose is for creating a Personal Vision Statement and write that at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Some examples are “What I need to be satisfied in my life” or “What I need to have balance in my career and personal life.” Next, take your time and look through the information you have gathered about yourself in each of the eight areas. Select the key things in each area that you want to have in your life and write them on your sheet. You may also identify some key things you know you must avoid, so put those down, too. For those who crave more organization, create a grid with a “must have” and “must avoid” box for each success factor. However you do it, complete your list and then set it aside for the moment.

Step Two: Conduct A Guided Imagery Exercise

Now, switch gears and focus on your right brain. It already has been working behind the scenes over the past months, during the self-discovery phase, as you completed the exercises.

To access the insights you’ve gained, try the following guided imagery exercise.

Make sure you’re alone and that you won’t be disturbed. Sit in a comfortable position, take some deep breaths and relax your muscles, and tune out the world around you for the time being.

Then, ask yourself to envision your ideal day. Imagine that you woke up one morning and found that someone had left you millions of dollars, no strings attached. You have a virtually limitless bank account that you can draw on any time you want with no need to worry about earning money again. You can start each day asking yourself, “What do I want to do today?”

Now read over the following text and questions and think about them each, without writing anything down. See what images come to mind as you ask yourself the questions. You can also speak and record your answers and play it back while you listen with your eyes closed.

“Imagine yourself in your bed waking up in the morning. Imagine yourself thinking about your day ahead and feeling curious, excited and energetic about what is to come. Today is your ideal day.

• What is your relationship like with your spouse or partner?
• What is your relationship like with your children?
• What is it like with your parents?
• Who are your friends?
• What things do you do together? What do you talk about?
• How do you feel about your life?

Now describe what a typical day would be like and picture yourself preparing for your day, however you would like to.

• What would your routine be?
• Where would you go?
• What would give your life and career meaning?

Imagine what your work day surroundings are like.

• Where do you work?
• How is your schedule arranged?
• What are you doing?
• Who is in your day?
• Which talents are you using?
• What are you working to accomplish and what are your activities?
• How much variety do you have?
• What is the pace of work like?
• How much challenge is there?

What gives your day and life the most meaning? What would be the most important thing you would do with your life?”

This is the end of the guided imagery.

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Who are you? This isn’t a rhetorical question—I’m really asking you who you are. If you’re saying to yourself, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a husband,” you’re answering only part of the question. What you do—your role in life, how you earn your living—is but one component of your identity.

Who You Are Is More Important Than What You Do

Figuring out what makes you tick is a complicated and important task, perhaps the most important one. Most of us are so caught up in the daily stress cycle that we haven’t focused on this question—or if we have, the treadmill of our busy lives has taken us far away from the answer. But the answer remains critical if you want to create a meaningful, energizing and exciting career.

Personality Is Your Unique Way Of Being In The World

In addition to roles, values, interests and abilities² (which we have explored in previous articles), personality is a big part of who you are. In fact, your personality pattern is having a huge impact on your life at this moment, whether you know it or not. What do I mean by personality? Think of it as your way of being, the sum total of your preferences, and your unique patterns of interacting with the world.

People have been thinking about personality for a long time: the ancient Greeks, for instance, believed that each individual is born with one of four distinct temperaments. Building on that concept, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of personality in the 1920s called “psychological types.” Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers created a practical application for Jung’s model—the MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)³, a detailed test instrument to measure psychological type which has been refined and improved over the years.

Understand The Components Of Personality

You’ve probably heard of and/or taken some version of the MBTI as it is often administered by schools, companies, and law firms. This test measures a person’s preferences or temperament by using four basic scales:

• extroversion vs. introversion (E/I)
• sensate vs. intuitive (S/N)
• thinking vs. feeling (T/F)
• judging vs. perceiving (J/P)

The various combinations of these preferences result in 16 personality types expressed by their corresponding letters such as “ENFP” or “ISTJ.” Each type has its own interests, strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, and some career fields and job descriptions attract more of some types than others.

This doesn’t mean that every ENFP is alike. Human beings are much more complex than that. But people with a particular type do have some basic characteristics in common that predict how they behave and what they prefer.

Life Is Change, But Your Personality Stays Constant

Many people think that personality is flexible and changes over time, depending on their environment or perhaps how much therapy they have had. It is true that you can learn new, more effective ways of behaving and interacting with people and even “unlearn” old, stifling patterns of behavior that hold you back. It’s also true that you may act differently at work than at home. Nevertheless, your basic temperament or personality, unlike your job or roles, remains the same throughout your life.

Skeptical? Do the following experiment. Write your name on a piece of paper. Now write your name with your opposite hand. How did it feel when you used your preferred hand? It probably felt natural, effortless, and easy. But when you used your non-preferred or non-dominant hand, it probably felt slow, uncomfortable, and tiring. Of course you can practice writing with your non-dominant hand to improve your skill, but your basic preference for your dominant hand will never change. The same is true for your personality type.

Are You A Listener Or A Talker?

Now let’s look at the first and perhaps most well-known dimension of personality type: Extroversion/Introversion. This dimension relates to how we interact in the world and where we get our energy.

See if this description of an extrovert applies to you: You enjoy being with people; it energizes you. You like to talk with people a lot during the work day; in fact, you talk more than you listen, preferring to discuss problems out loud with coworkers and friends. You seek out others, needing them to recharge and feel connected especially at the end of a hard day. You enjoy going to the grocery store or mall because you may run into someone you know, and love parties where you can work the room. What you don’t like is feeling isolated or being stuck in a structured environment.

On the other hand, maybe you’re the kind of person who needs time to yourself on a regular basis. You tend to be quiet and methodical, preferring to think ideas through before discussing them with others; in fact, you listen more than talk. When you do talk with others you get to the point quickly—though you’d almost always rather send an email than have a conversation. You want meetings to have a purpose and defined time limit, and you don’t enjoy brainstorming. At the end of an exhausting day, you need to go home and relax by reading or watching TV (anything but talking.) For you, a trip to the store is for one purpose only: to get what you need and get out. Spending long periods of time with many people in business or social situations feels like work and leaves you feeling drained.

For Most Of Us, Personality Is A Mixture Of Traits

Do you recognize yourself? I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t: both examples above are pretty extreme. In reality, even the most outgoing extrovert enjoys being alone at times and the most extreme introvert wants to be with people sometimes. But everyone has a natural preference for one over the other; it’s a question of which you prefer more often, or if you are midrange on both.

If you’re more introvert than extravert, you’re in good company: the majority of lawyers are introverts. In fact, one study showed that 57 percent of lawyers are introverts, compared to 25 percent of the general public.⁴ Preferring introversion doesn’t mean that you don’t like to litigate, do public speaking, or be with people. It just means you need more alone time to reflect on things than someone who prefers extroversion.

Also, you may be midrange on both, which means that you have more choice about your interpersonal environment. If you are a combination, you need to make sure you have a good balance between being with others and being by yourself.

Match Your Personality With Your Job’s Personality

Now that you have a sense of who you are, think about where you work. Is your office quiet or noisy? Are you expected to do your best work with others or by yourself? Do you know what’s on your agenda each day or is your schedule a work in progress?

Angela, for example, works in a busy office where she’s expected to make herself available to her colleagues and clients. She counsels, advises and interacts with people all day long. Because she’s an extrovert, she thrives in this environment. Attending impromptu meetings, thinking on her feet—these activities make her feel alive.

Larry, on the other hand, looks forward to coming to work at his quiet office where each attorney is granted a full measure of privacy and autonomy. An introvert, he closes his doors and spends his day poring over documents, researching and writing. When he does meet with clients, he gets right down to business. He likes meetings to be scheduled in advance and attends each with a list of goals or issues to discuss.

Angela and Larry are lucky—their work environments match their temperaments. But what if they were to switch jobs? Angela would feel as if she were crawling the walls sitting in an office by herself; Larry would spend every moment feeling anxious and drained.

Clearly, to have a rewarding and satisfying career you need to make sure that your personality matches your work environment. The right job will allow you to be who you are and will suit the way you like to do things naturally. Otherwise, you’ll feel like a right-handed person who’s asked to write with her left hand. Nothing will feel effortless. You’ll be working against your natural preferences instead of working in concert with them.

Assess Other Dimensions Of Your Personality

Remember that extroversion/introversion is just one of the four dimensions of personality; getting the other three dimensions into alignment with your work life is just as important.

To assess your natural strengths and inclinations or “personality type,” I recommend you take the MBTI, preferably the newer MBTI-Step 2. While it is not perfect (the test consists of subjective questions and is self-reporting,) it is perhaps the most widely-recognized and validated assessment available for testing personality type. I suggest you work with a career counselor or coach who has experience interpreting the MBTI for lawyers.

In addition to the MBTI, you can read one of the many books on personality type and temperament.⁵ Or take an online “mini quiz” to help you determine your temperament.⁶ While these are quick and fun to take and you may learn something about your personal style, they are not as thorough as the MBTI and have not been validated by research.

Strive For Goodness Of Fit

Next time we will look at the eighth and final Success Factor—your Goals. In the meantime, take time to get to know yourself better and learn more about your personality preferences. And then try to align your work role with your work environment so that you’re working with your natural tendencies, not fighting them. This way, you’ll allow who you are to be a positive force in your work life.

As Isabel Briggs Myers said, “Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire.”

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Skills And Interests Help Give Your Personal Vision Substance And Structure

By now, I hope you have spent some time assessing the first two Critical Success Factors, which I covered in the previous two articles. If you have, in what Stage of Adult Development are you? Are you at a turning point or in a building stage, and how does that impact your decision making and stress cycle? Also, what are your Natural Abilities and talents and how are you hard-wired? Your abilities form the foundation of your Personal Vision so it’s important you learn what they are.² If you haven’t looked at these two areas of your life, focus some time this month on them. I suggest you start a Personal Vision Notebook, if you have not already done so. That will give you a central place in which you can record your thoughts and answers when you do the various exercises I recommend.

In this segment we move on to the third and fourth Critical Success Factors of your life—Skills and Interests. Just knowing your natural abilities is not enough; you need to be able to plug that information into your life so that you can use them all the time. Skills and Interests help you do this and give your Personal Vision substance and structure.

Your Skills Work Hand In Hand With Your Abilities

Let’s start with Skills. Your skills are what you have learned in life through schools, on the job training, CLEs, etc. Unlike your natural abilities, which are set by the time you are about 14 years old and will not change, your skills are learned and can continue to be nurtured and developed. Your experiences have created an extremely valuable asset for you to take into the next stage of your career, and there are several reasons why you need to consider this asset when crafting your Personal Vision.First, you need to know what your skills are because they work hand-in-hand with your abilities. What you are naturally talented at doing can be greatly enhanced with skills and experience. Also, your skills complement your natural abilities because what you are not naturally gifted to do can be compensated for with training. For some careers you need both skills and natural abilities to be successful. For example, a 14 year-old boy may have the natural abilities needed to be an excellent surgeon, but he will still need to get the education and skills to put it into practice.

So knowing what you do well and whether it is because of your abilities, skills or a combination of the two is a critical component in career planning. It allows you to understand why things are the way they are for you. A lawyer named Allen, for example, discovered that he did not have the natural abilities to be a litigator and that he had compensated for years by developing skills through education, training and experience. It explained why so many aspects of litigation left him feeling drained. He also learned that he had both the natural talent and the skills needed to be a writer, which was why writing was something he did easily and well.

Evaluating your skills also helps you decide which ones you would like to continue using, which ones you need to develop further, and which ones you want to abandon completely. The mere fact that you have a skill does not mean you need to use it. You will enjoy your work more and do a much better job if you focus on those skills that you both enjoy doing and can do well. On the flip side, if there is a skills gap in your current position or you dislike the skills you are frequently employing, that is critical information. Either one of those things can be the source of great stress. With Allen, he realized that since he had become partner he was not getting to write as much as he used to and he missed it. He decided to focus on ways he could bring writing back into his life on a regular basis.

Transferable Skills Are Especially Important If You Are Considering A New Area Of Practice, A Different Kind Of Job, Or A New Career

Another reason to identify your skills is so you can evaluate current and future career opportunities in terms of the “transferable skills” you already have. Transferable skills are especially important if you are considering a new area of practice, a different kind of job, or a new career. Legal training is really quite broad, and many skills that you have developed as a lawyer can be transferred to other fields. For example, lawyers have developed good analytical skills, oral and written communication skills, and negotiation skills. The training starts with the first day of law school and is honed by the practice of law thereafter. Lawyers take those abilities for granted because peers in the profession have developed the same core skills. And even if that weren’t the case, most people are simply not aware of the richness of their own skills. We tend to take what we do well for granted, and so many times overlook our most powerful and effective skills because we have always used them so effectively. Our most significant skills don’t seem important because they are so easy for us. When asked to name their best skills, most of my clients will focus on something that was difficult for them to learn.
Remember Allen? His most important skills remained invisible to him until he took some time to learn more about them and uncovered a pattern that he was previously unaware of. He saw that some of the things he had done in high school and college were similar to what he did best as a lawyer, with writing being just one of them. The exercises he did gave him a fresh perspective about his skills and he suddenly saw how he could use them in many other fields.

An Exercise For Assessing Your Skills

The following exercise is a good one for assessing your skills. Make a list of at least twenty accomplishments—things that have happened in your life that you are proud of or feel good about. Include both on the job and off the job situations and cover the full range of your life, not just adulthood. It may be that you completed a project, created something, learned a new skill, won a difficult case, closed a deal, mentored a worker, or turned a difficult situation around. Write them in your Personal Vision Notebook and then answer the following questions:

• What skills appear in the stories? Note them beside each story.
• Are there themes? Do they fall into natural groups? How would you name them?
• Of those skills, which do you enjoy using?
• What skills have you consistently used? Which are underutilized?
• Are more of your stories work related or non-work related?
• Are there patterns?
• How do your skills enhance or build on your natural abilities? Which skills help you compensate or strengthen areas in which you are not naturally as gifted?

You can then expand your list:

• Identify other skills you have that weren’t revealed in your list of accomplishments. Take a look at your calendar over the past couple of months to refresh your memory about your activities and then analyze the skills that you were using for each. You can then run them through the same questions above.
• Which skills do you want to build or acquire to help you in your current job? Or, which skills do you need to develop if you intend to expand your career?

When You Find Ways To Include Your Interests In Your Career, Your Life Changes Dramatically

Once you have a better understanding of your skills, it’s time to examine your Interests, which are the people, places, things, and activities that grab your attention. They are what fascinate you, pull at you. There are varying degrees of interests, from things that you are most passionate about, which is usually a short list, to things that interest you. Your interests may be for either an activity, like playing golf, or a subject matter, like antiques. For example, you may be passionate about baseball, the subject matter, but do not enjoy playing the game. You also may not enjoy the area of law in which you are practicing but really love taking depositions.

We often neglect this factor because we tend to assign our interests and passions to a box labeled “outside of work.” Instead of viewing interests as something you pursue once you leave the office, you can find ways to bring them into your career. They may or may not be a part of a career direction but can add “spice” to career choice and balance to the work world. Interests can sometimes give new energy to your career.

When I talk to people who have had full and satisfying lives and ask them how they found the career that suited them so well they all say some version of the same thing. “I always did what interested me.” When you pay attention to what you find personally interesting and fascinating and find ways to include it in your career, your life changes dramatically. Instead of keeping “interests” and “work” in two separate compartments of your life with no connection between them, you get to include this exciting component in your career. You can be more creative, happier and enthusiastic. Work doesn’t seem like work—you are engaged and enjoy what you do. The fact that somebody pays you to do it can seem like icing on the cake.

Are you surprised that interests can have something to do with your work? Most people, especially lawyers with billable hour requirements, are very surprised to learn this. Many feel resigned to their situations and have learned to ignore or push interests deep down in the name of “adulthood” or “responsibility.” They have turned off their interest radar and thought generator. If you have learned to ignore what really interests you because you are too tired, too busy, or too stuck in your job, you have a lot of company. The truth is, interests can give your life more richness, texture and substance. You can learn to take them more seriously and make a place for them in your life. Or even create a life in which they can play a regular role.

An Exercise For Assessing Your Interests

The first step is to get in touch with your interests. There are those you already know about and others that may be more hidden or forgotten. Start by answering the following questions, and don’t forget to record your answers.

• Who are the people that interest you the most?
• What places, ideas, and books interest you?
• What school subjects were the most interesting?
• What activities satisfy you the most?
• What do you do in your spare time for fun and relaxation? What do you wish you did?
• Write down 20 of the most enjoyable experiences of your life, drawing from all stages of life and include career and outside of work.

Think about events that were fulfilling, fun, and so engaging that time seemed to fly by. Think about experiences that were easy and lifted your spirits. Now look at those experiences and identify what made them so enjoyable. Was it the subject matter or the activities you were doing, or both? What was it about them that interested you? Add those interests to your list.

Now that you have a list of interests and passions to work with, start to identify what part your interests play in adding balance to your life.

• Is there a common theme or pattern in your list of interests?

• Separate your list of interests into four categories:

1. “Must haves” for your career. How can you begin to add these in?
2. Good for a hobby. Are you finding time for them? If not, how can you?
3. Need more research. Make a plan to get more information.
4. Do not need to include at this time.

The goal is to identify what interests you want to include in your Personal Vision at this point in your life, and how you are going to do that. If you are staying in your current career, how can you restructure things so that your interests are a part of it? If you want to change careers, what part do you want interests to play? Is there a way to include the “must haves” you have identified?

Let’s go back to Allen one last time. As he continued to do work on his Personal Vision and identified his areas of interest, he rediscovered that he had a real love of writing that went beyond the legal writing he did as a lawyer. He had forgotten how much he had enjoyed writing for his high school newspaper years ago. The pressures of college, law school, being an associate, making partner, and having a family had caused him to push that interest deep down, and he realized that adding it back might give his life more joy. He decided to start writing articles for the Bar Journal and a few other lawyer magazines, and found he really enjoyed it. He then wrote a couple of short stories for a magazine, and found that to be even more invigorating. After attending a seminar on how to become a published novelist, he decided to try his hand at writing fiction, and is now working on his first book. He has found renewed creativity and energy in his days just by adding this interest back into his life.

In the next issue, we will take a look at the next two Critical Success Factors: Family of Origin and Values. In the meantime, consider your Skills and Interests and how they can help you create a more fulfilling career and balanced life. Maybe you will uncover a couple of hidden gems.

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