Being Happy and Successful...

When people ask Warren Buffett 'do u think u are successful', he often reply with a 'i dun know what successful means, but i sure know i'm happy.' Success is getting what you want, happiness is wantng what you get. How true! But how many of us truly know what we want?

Its like we spend our whole life climbing a mountain but to realise that at the peak, what we truly love is the river that flows at the bottom of the mountain (maybe because there's a Tim Hortons nearby).

Read a article by David Maister who specialises in professional service firms (law, acct, invesment banking, consulting, etc). His articles are easy to read, insightful and highly relevant even after 20 years. Went to google him and this guy blogs! haha. It was the following speech that's on his blog that's really impactful.

If u have the time, please read the full article.

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Stephen C. Ellis - the managing partner at the law firm of Tucker, Ellis & West.

What follows is the commencement address he gave at Case Western reserve School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio on May 19, 2008.

The title of his remarks is "On Being a Happy(and Successful) Lawyer

Now we’re going to do a ten second experiment. Take a moment and reflect on the occasions when you felt truly happy - and please don’t name ‘listening to this talk”. [8 seconds of silence]

I submit that not one of you is thinking about money or material things. Our best times are always with people we care about, doing things that bring us closer together. But knowing that, we let ourselves climb on this treadmill, running harder and harder, like that donkey trying to catch the carrot on a stick.

I believe this is beginning to change, at least in the arena where lawyers have to keep increasing the hours they devote to work. Hours are being recognized as an irrational measure of value. Nobody calls a lawyer asking them to please spend twenty hours on a project. Clients want to pay us for what we do, not how long it takes us to do it.

If you’ve decided to become a lawyer solely to make money if to you it’s simply a job I fear you’ll hate it. As a career and a calling it’s great, and unbelievably interesting, but as simply a job, it’s way too hard and stressful. It’s the people, the pace and the endless puzzles of the law that make being a lawyer fulfilling. If you want tons of money for working twenty hours a day and nausea-inducing stress, Wall Street investment banking may be just the thing . In that business the grand old men are burnt out at 45.

Over the past few years I’ve come to some conclusions on finding guideposts that will give us lawyers the best chance of being successful, in the sense of truly enjoying our lives and careers as lawyers. They are simple, some might say “trite”. But 36 years of listening to happy and desperately unhappy lawyers and watching colleagues succeed as lawyers and people, and some fail, I know that these may be cliché’s, but I also know they are true.

First, be someone others count on. Most folks talk a good game; very few come through. Clients come to you because they have a situation they cannot solve on their own. Most are not looking for an analysis of the law. Most want you to solve a problem. So solve it, don’t add to their problem by being hard to find, by missing deadlines, or by simply describing their problem back to them. It’s like going to the dentist when you have a toothache. You want it fixed and you want it fixed now. That’s what a client wants every time they talk to you. Walk in with a problem, walk out with a solution.

What they want is someone they can count on to make their lives simpler, to accomplish what they want accomplished. If you can simply do that, you’ll be sought out as an extraordinarily effective lawyer. And there is a real difference in your sense of self between being simply a resource; somebody who knows the law, and the person that people count on to solve their problems.

Second - be an interesting person, for your own good and so that clients think of you as more than a lawyer. A decent definition of hell is a dinner party companion who is a first year lawyer on the day after his or her first trial. Law stuff is interesting mostly to lawyers. In fact, it’s real interesting to lawyers, so that’s what we talk about all the time, just like you talk about law school all the time.

Force yourself to do be able to talk about more than law - read books, go to movies, be part of politics, go to lectures. You’ll meet people, you’ll be able to talk about things that other people find interesting, and you won’t burn out on your job.

The horror stories you hear about associates working 2500 hours a year? You will be surprised when you see how much of that is self imposed. These young lawyers get caught up in the chase and find that what they’re doing more interesting than anything else- so they become that boring self absorbed dining companion. The world’s full of great people with jobs and hobbies that are just as demanding and just as fascinating as yours, (assuming you make yourself get a hobby). Learn about them. You’ll be happier and much more fun to be with.

The toughest lawyer is not the one who is the most obnoxious. Clients will say they want a tough son of a gun to make somebody life’s miserable, a real bulldog, etc.
Don’t be that person. It’s been my 100% uniform experience that the bulldog only adds time, expense, stress and confusion to an otherwise inevitable result. Even clients can’t stand them after a couple of months.

And finally and hands down most importantly, and please pass this on to your friends and your children, because it’s really important — Be nice and have fun. Just doing that makes life better for everybody, mostly you.