Finding Your Why
I believe each of us has our own “why” in this life, and the further we are pulled away from that why, the less happy we are. There are always people pulling at you to compromise your relationship with your why.
I have gone through a career being pulled away from my why by partners with a different why. Even with success, I found myself sad, angry, and frustrated. I pulled away from all partners sure there would now be no distractions between me and my why.
The biggest struggle I have had since leaving the confines of big law firms is marketing my new law firm. I have always been in places where I did not need to market myself. To me, working tirelessly to get clients through dark times to successful resolution was just my job, not something to be self-promoted.
But I know I cannot help make things better if no one knows who I am or what I stand for. So, I reached out to some companies to help me in this regard. What I got were well-meaning people who wanted me to lead with what I do or how I do it.
My competitors lead with what they do or how they do it. Big verdicts, big settlements, great results. We mean business. We are tough. Things like that.
It is so easy to let other people lead you away from your why. Especially when they are in positions of authority over you or you have a trust relationship with them. If you are not careful, you are following their why before you know it.
So I pulled away and thought about my life and career. I have worked my entire adult life to make things better. It has always been about the clients and helping them and how their cases can make things better for the rest of us. Leading with big verdicts or settlements or what a great lawyer I am just does not fit with my why.
It turns out that the most successful companies in the world establish a why, lead with that why, and live that why.
Perhaps the strongest example of leading with a personal why in modern corporate history has been Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs’s core belief was to challenge the status quo by thinking differently. People developed fierce brand loyalty to whatever Jobs did because his customers believed in thinking differently. His customers believed in challenging the status quo.
But Steve’s why was always challenged. People within his company got enough control to force Steve out, and when they abandoned his why Apple’s market share and customer loyalty suffered.
Reinstituting Steve and his why made Apple soar. Even now, with Steve gone, the people running Apple live and share his why, and Apple continues on with the same fierce customer loyalty.
People do not buy what we do, they believe in why we do it.
We are all in a constant struggle against others trying to pull us away from our why. Some of these people mean to distract us, but most do not. Most people are trying to satisfy their own why and have no idea they are asking us to pull away from ours. In fact, most people think they are helping us as they try to pull us away.
I think that is why I started this blog and why I am making these posts about our why. We need to keep a close relationship so others cannot pull us away. It’s when we are distracted from our why or we don’t understand our why or we choose to turn away from our why that things get complicated and we lose our way.
So as I thought about marketing my law firm, I really was struggling with a question that has followed me my entire life. We all have a why and whether we know it or not, we are beholden to that why for our happiness. If we cannot identify our why, it is hard to consistently serve that why, and then it is hard to be consistently happy.
But if we dig in and ask the right questions, we find the answers that are right for us. By asking myself why I have worked so hard for so long to make things better, I realized that at my core, I believe that Better Matters.
Over the course of the next year or so, I will be sharing stories of times I have helped make things better. How I have chosen to make things better is through the law by helping courageous people that have been hurt by medical negligence. That’s why these stories will be on this blog under the subtitle “Courageous Stories.”
What I do is generate large-dollar verdicts and settlements — not because the money can replace the damage done, but because I know that doctors and hospitals only make things better when it is in their financial interest to do so. Money is not the primary reason my clients pursue their case.
My clients believe like me that Better Matters and we stand up for this belief every day.
Finding my why has helped bring clarity and happiness to my life. What’s your why? I know it’s there. Find it, and you will be able to be closer connected and happy more often.