What DRIVES You?

Every now and then, I like to move away from teaching about the legal marketing/ law practice aspects of running a small or solo law firm and dive into something that’s rarely talked about in the legal field…which is your mindset.

Because here’s the truth, I can give you all the legal marketing and practice management tips in the world, but if your head isn’t in the right place, you’ll find a way to sabotage your efforts.

Conversely, you can be the worst marketer or business person, but if you have the right mindset, you’ll eventually find success.

Today, I want to talk about DRIVE and how it relates to the success of your life/business right now.

Take a moment and consider the following:

1. What drives me?

2. What is my purpose for being a lawyer?

3. What is my purpose in life?

4. Am I happy?

5. Why did I go to law school?

6. Am I making a difference in the world?

These can be hard questions to look at….especially in times of economic hardship. You may feel driven on pure survival. And you may find yourself enduring gruesome hours and complete misery all in the name of making money.

You may even be compromising your time and sanity by taking legal work that you don’t WANT or LIKE to do-just to get by.

Ultimately though, these actions don’t lead to more money. They lead to burnout, bitterness, depression, addictions and in extreme cases, suicide (which is sadly on the rise for lawyers these days).

There comes a point at which if you’re going to succeed in the business of law….and in the business of life, you need to get very clear on what drives you, why you wanted to practice law in the first place and whether you are really living the life you want.

I recently had a call with Dan Pink, the New York Times best-selling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, where we discussed this issue as it relates specifically to lawyers and the legal field.

What you may not know about Dan is that he’s got a JD from Yale. But, he never used his law degree to practice because he realized early on that his “drive” and motivation was not to be a lawyer.

Going to law school was, for him, just the next logical step for a bright kid with a top-notch college degree and a lack of clarity about what else to do.

And there’s many lawyers out there who went to law school for the same reason and are now incredibly unhappy in the actual practice of law…..not because they aren’t smart….but they aren’t aligned with that which drives them. (This may even be you.)

Dan also acknowledged there’s another group of lawyers….lawyers like me who went to law school with the DRIVE and purpose to really help people. If that’s you, you’re driven by the idea of making a real difference in the world and using the power of your law degree to some chief and definite aim.

And there’s many of us in this group who have lost sight of that drive. We take jobs in law firms that keep us stuck in the transactional rut or we get so desperate running a small or solo law firm that we take clients and cases that leave us miserable in practice.

If that’s you-I completely understand. I was there. It’s exactly what motivated me to leave the safety of my six-figure paycheck and set out to build my own law firm. And it’s also what motivated me to master the skills and create the systems I now teach in the Personal Family Lawyer Program.

I wanted to make a real difference in my client’s lives and I knew the old, broken business model just didn’t leave enough room for that. Not if I wanted to also enjoy my personal life.

Yes it was scary…..yes there were moments when I questioned my own sanity leaving the big check and investing hundreds of thousands of dollars reinventing the business model….but I had to get aligned with what drives me or face years of unhappiness and little quality time with my kids.

What I can tell you is that when I made the decision to get aligned with what was really important to me in life and my practice, the money, freedom and success ultimately followed.

So take a moment today and think about what drives you.

Why did you go to law school and are you living that desire?  A great start is downloading the call I did with Dan Pink and force yourself to identify any disconnect in your own life. I’ll show you how to work through it in the weeks to come.

Related posts:

1. Why Did You Go to Law School?