4th Key To Success And Fulfillment You Have To Motivate Yourself

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers 4th Key to Success and Fulfillment: You Have to Motivate Yourself Before I get started, I have a major announcement. As you know, I started doing legal recruiting with Lateral Link in 2018. Now, Lateral Link has given me the opportunity to bring my client development teaching and coaching to a national audience. Over the next 12 months, I will be presenting live webinar programs each month on client development. The webinars will also be recorded and be available to view and download. I want to make this program as interactive as possible so I invite participants to send me questions on the monthly topic and I will do my best to address those questions during the program. Check out this link to learn more about The Lateral Link Rainmaker Series and sign up. In the last several posts, I have shared my ideas on career success and life fulfillment. As you know, after I gave up my law practice, I worked with hundreds of lawyers in the United States and Canada. Some of those lawyers were motivated and energized. Others were trying to find their motivation. So, I want to focus on motivation in this post and another one later. I have been told I am a motivational speaker. In fact, I was frequently asked to do Bar and Law Firm programs designed to motivate lawyers. Back in 2007,  I was asked to give a presentation to the ABA Young Lawyers Division at their Spring meeting. The ABA YLD came up with ”  Come on Baby Light My Fire â€" How to Reignite Your Flame with the Law.”  The title they chose intrigued me, so I posted a blog about it in January 2007, Listen to Maya Angelou. I began my presentation by showing a short video clip of the Doors singing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1967. You likely don’t know that they got in trouble for not changing the “girl we couldn’t get much higher” lyrics, as they had promised. Then I told the young lawyers: “I have some really good news and some really bad news. The good news is I believe strongly I can light your fire and reignite your flame with the law. The bad news is that unless you are self motivated, the flame I ignited will burn out within a week.” A few years ago I read The Best Damn Sales Book Ever: 16 Rock-Solid Rules for Achieving Sales Success!    by Warren Greshes. The book title doesn’t do the book justice because the principles in the book are broader than sales. Early in the book Greshes talks about motivation. You might hear a speaker that motivates you, but that is external motivation and it does not last. What he said reminded me of a Stephen Covey quote: “Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” If you find your inner motivation, it will burn forever. I doubt you will find it by getting your billable hours, getting promoted or making a lot of money. If that is your focus, there will always be someone who gets more hours, gets promoted sooner and  makes more money. So, what is the best way for you to find your inner motivation? Focus on the journey, not the destination. Do not compare how you are doing with others, Think about how the work you are doing is helping your clients. Finally, work each and every day to become a better lawyer. I will share some more specific motivation ideas with you in a future post. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.