Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Showing the passion and the difference

It's hard to get frequent plane travellers interested in the usual announcements but this steward does it

Anna Jacobson Photographer

Anna now has a website at www.annajacobson.com.au.

Worth a look.

Songs about lawyers

Above the Law lists its top 10 lawyer songs

Here's my top 3 (I fought the Law, Lawyers Guns and Money, I Shot the Sheriff)

Career guidance: Johnny Bunko review

Garr Reynolds has a great review of  The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need here .

There's a manga cartoon trailer for the book but I liked Reynold's slideshow summary.

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Why do so many lawyers become writers?

Peter Lattman from the WSJ Law Blog asks the question whether lawyers are really frustrated writers? And if so, is that why they are unhappy? But does unhappiness make for good writing? Here.

Keeping in touch with the blogosphere

Technorati currently tracks 29 million blogs.

Of course not all of these are sites that I would want to track, if I ever could.

I currently track 93 sites through Bloglines, my newsreader.

One of those sites is Blawg Review which itself is a weekly review of the latest in legal blogs with the twist that each week's collection has a different editor/host who brings their own different perspective.

This week's host is De Novo who apart from linking to my post about Seligman (and suggests the real question is "Why are lawyers such pessimists?") reminds me that it's time to update my list of blogs that I refer to in the sidebar of this page. Will do!

PS I also read the The Carnival of the Capitalists for business-related blogs. This week it's at Ideologic.

Martin Seligman on why lawyers aren't optimists

I saw psychologist Martin Seligman speak today.

He observed that lawyers were generally pessimists.
Why? He said that negative emotions were associated with the law as it was a zero sum game:there are no winners. Positive emotion is associated with win/win scenarios.

He said there are 3 problems with modern lawyers:

1. Lawyers are selected for their pessimism. Lawyers have to be "prudent" and risk averse in situations where a loss could be catastrophic.They are able to think of any conceivable catastrophe.
2. Lawyers who aren't partners are pessimistic as a result of low decision making powers as well as high pressure from work.
3. Lawyers fail to use their key strengths: grinding documents can create pessimism in a lawyer with good social skills.

He also observed generally that it's easier to be creative in an atmosphere which is relaxed. In an atmosphere where the question is always "what's wrong" and focussed on correcting errors, feelings are likely to be negative.

Links: authentic happiness (find out your signature strengths), reflective happiness (take the happiness test)

UPDATE: Online journal The Submission has an article called Less Marble Tiles … More Happy Smiles- Saving The Practice Of Law by James McConvill and Richard Edney. They discuss Seligman's ideas in a lot more detail and consider Seligman's solutions. They also point to an article by Seligman on Why Lawyers are Unhappy in a special edition of the Deakin Law Review called Law and the Pursuit of Happiness: The Next Movement.

Book Review: The Conceptual Age

In A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, author Daniel Pink argues that "the scales are tipping away from what it used to take for people to get ahead—logical, linear, left-brain, and spreadsheet-type abilities—in favor of abilities like artistry, empathy, and big-picture thinking, which are becoming more valuable."

This interview from Management Consulting News gives an insight:

"MCNews: The professional services business has traditionally been left-brained. What advice would you give professional services providers so their practices thrive in the conceptual age?
Pink: Well, they need to think through the same imperatives: Are you doing something that someone overseas can’t do cheaper, or that a computer can’t do  faster? Does what you do satisfy some of the spiritual, emotional, or esthetic needs of our society?"

Perhaps all he's saying is that globalisation means that businesses need to be innovative, and to be innovative you need to be creative. But you need the skills as a base.

via Guerilla Consulting

Finding your career

It seems that after 12 years of education, with more years ahead of them, most graduating high school students today still have no idea of their career.

Which really isn't much different from when I graduated, except that I did what would make my parents happy.

So, as a parent, this interview with Peter Drucker (from 1968!) is reassuring. Here's a taste:

Peter Drucker: Here I am, 58, and I still don't know what I am going to do when I grow up. My children and their spouses think I am kidding when I say that, but I am not. Nobody tells them that life is not that categorized. And nobody tells them that the only way to find what you want is to create a job. Nobody worth his salt has ever moved into an existing job. There are a few elementary things you can do first.

PT: And what are they?

Drucker: First, you know what you don't want to do, but what you do want to do is still a mystery. There is no way of finding out but trying. Second, one doesn't t marry a job. A job is your opportunity to find out-that's all it is. You owe no loyalty to your employer other than not betraying secrets. Be ruthless about finding out whether you belong; I am. Finally, looking around never hurts. One can always quit. Don't try to reason out those things one can learn only from experience. Do you know enough about yourself?. There are things you can know, even at age 20.

Drucker says: ask yourself whether you like pressure, whether you want to work in a big 0rganisation, are you analytical or perceptive?

Worthwhile reading for all ages.

What's important in your career ?

Evelyn Rodriguez was in Thailand at the time of the tsunami. She was one of the first people to write about her experiences.

It now appears that the tsunami has had a profound impact on her approach to her marketing consultancy.

In this post she poses a quiz. Sample: name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress. Can't?  Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

Headlines of the day are not what people remember in their lives.

She's taking that thought of finding her voice into developing new approaches to her career.