If you want to be a Rainmaker, you don’t want to spend your time looking back and wallowing in situations that upset you:
- You didn’t get the client,
- You didn’t win the case,
- The judge/your partner/significant other/friend yelled at you.
- The seminar/webinar was a bust,
- Someone said something to you that you didn’t like,
- You said something that you shouldn’t have said,
And so on.
Yes, you can learn from your mistakes, but many lawyers will allow these and other situations that upset them, including their personal lives, to continue taking up space in their heads. As a result, they will not take the action necessary to become the Rainmaker they would like to be. You need to learn to move forward at all times. Learn from what happened, then get on with it.
But what if looking back could spur you on to greater heights of Rainmaking Success?
I am currently decluttering my apartment. While doing so, I came across some old referral letters I used to use when looking for a job (before I started The-Rain-Maker). My first job out of law school only lasted a year and a half (the company folded), but the letter they gave me in 1993 from the company’s CEO caused me to stop cleaning because it was so glowing it made me smile.
Sometimes, we forget what we can do because we are so focused on the negative as lawyers. It’s how we are taught to think. (This is a blog post for another day.)
Seeing that letter and the other referral letters I received over the years made me realize that all of the negative things I thought about myself were wrong and that I am good at what I do. This is not meant to be narcissistic – instead, to acknowledge that there is no one in the world harder on me than myself, and that has got to end.
And it has to end with you, too! Stop looking in the rearview mirror – it makes it impossible to go forward that way – and start looking out the windshield of your life to what’s ahead.
You can be a great rainmaker!
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