Page 17 - Social Media Musings

Social Media Musings – Part III My Reflections on the Practice and Life
have a created a positive new habit.
Scars linger to remind us and others that we can overcome.
When bad things happen, you can react in two ways. You can get angry it is happening to you. Or you can embrace it as a life lesson and learn from it.
You can look at the mountain and either feel sorry for yourself because of its size or feel sorry for it because you know you will climb it or go through it.
Don’t ask yourself what if you fail. Ask yourself what if you succeed.
Success requires a paradigm shift, where one embraces as opposed to avoids failure, learns from it and builds upon it.
As a young lawyer, it is a blessing to be knocked down, because in getting knocked down one learns one can get up and keep pressing forward. And the more you get knocked down, and the more you get up,
the more grit you develop and the better equipped you are for life’s challenges. To fight and conquer life you first have to be beat up by life. It’s a tough lesson to learn but learn it we all must.
The bigger, the higher, the more challenging the obstacle, the greater the satisfaction when you overcome it.
You’ve survived every bad day. The day you lost the big case? You survived. The day you lost the big client? You survived. The day you lost your job? You survived. The day you lost your firm? You survived. You are a survivor. Don’t look back at the failures. Look back
at how you survived and how you are still standing.
Life is lazy. It’s used to knocking folks down and walking away, expecting they won’t
get up. Some get up, surprising life, which knocks them down again. If you can keep getting up, you’ll eventually get the best of life, because it just doesn’t have what it takes to keep knocking you down over and over. Life doesn’t want to admit it, but it is actually a bit lazy, and if you just keep getting up, life will move on and knock someone else down with less grit than you.
Life can treat us like a mischievous child who purposely drops a glass vase. We fall and shatter. The grit comes when we tape and glue and tie the pieces together. Those cracks, those uneven spaces, those lines - that’s where our strength lies. That’s where the beauty is.
If you’re a young lawyer, and you’re overwhelmed, anxious and afraid, I was there too. All lawyers were. You’ll get through it.
Fear is your worst enemy as a young lawyer. Fear sidelined me for years as a young lawyer, hamstringing me from pursuing speaking, leadership, and trial opportunities. Confront your fear and address it. Ignoring or succumbing to it will hinder your professional development.
You are great at something. If you haven’t discovered what it is yet, keep searching.
Liberation comes the moment you define success on your own terms.
©2021 Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel
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