Three Lessons From My Legal Podcast
I’ll let you in on a secret. The Advocate’s Key, my podcast, is as much for me as it is for the audience who listens to it. I choose guests because I want to learn from them or because I’m curious about their story. It just so happens that you can listen in.
If you haven’t listened yet, I want to share three lessons I learned on two recent podcasts.
- Look To Be a Bargain. Don’t Look to Get a Bargain. I interviewed Justice Charlie Bethel of the Supreme Court of Georgia. He repeated something he said to mine and Judge Dillard’s law school class. Here was the lesson: no matter what your job is, you should make it your mission to be the best bargain your employer ever received for whatever amount of money you are being paid. Work for yourself? Then look to be every client’s best bargain ever. If you work to get a bargain, you will find that life seems unfair. You’ll feel constantly cheated. If you are a “be-a-bargain-person,” you will find many opportunities coming your way.
- Don’t Focus Just on The Career Goal You Want; Focus on Being the Kind of Person Who Would Achieve That Goal. Again, from Justice Bethel. He advises that it can be a mistake to focus just on your career goal. What if you want to a federal judge, or the President? You can work to be those things. But many things about your career goals are beyond your control. Timing and luck are a bigger deal in life than we think. However, if you fill your toolbox with the things that would make you a great Senator, President, major league baseball player or fill in the blank, you will have acquired wonderful skills that you can transfer to some other worthy pursuit. What a great perspective!
- Be Scrappy When You Feel Like You Are in Over Your Head. Also, The Work Never Stops. From Steve Frey, a good friend of mine and great trial attorney, I learned a little of what he learned from his dad, himself a legendary Atlanta criminal defense attorney. When Steve passed the bar, his dad’s eyes welled with tears. But, moments later, his dad told him that his achievement would mean nothing if he didn’t keep working. As someone else once told me: you don’t buy success. You rent it. And the rent comes due daily. When Steve found himself in Federal court and realized his opponent was the United States of America, he did a little gut check. And he went on to win. This podcast is filled with wisdom.
If you haven’t checked out my podcast, please do so. You can find it on:
I hope you have half as much fun listening as I have enjoyed doing these interviews.
