Description
How to become an External Thinker Like the World's Most Successful People
[00:00:00] Although I have a lot of energy, I'm also experiencing a lot of bitterness and anger over certain disappointments I've encountered and I'm still a law student.
In law school, a lot of my classmates went to large law firms. I struck out I was fortunate to get a summer position at a smaller firm. Nevertheless, because my goal is to work one of these large law firms, I feel extremely frustrated how this played out. I feel bitter and resentful towards the people I interviewed with who I feel, wrote me off. It is something that I still carry with me. Sometimes it motivates me, but other times it is too consuming. Should I put my energy into trying to get over this feeling? Is it holding me back?
That's a great question. Thank you by the way for asking that because I think a lot of people on this call are likely to feel the same way about a lot of things and a lot of disappointments that they've had and I can identify with.
It's no fun not being chosen by groups or being rejected by groups and and not feeling like you belong or feeling like you don't belong. And, [00:01:00] not always understand the reasons why. So that's, extremely and very very touching statement for me to hear, because I think that what you're feeling is very common for a lot of attorneys, law, students and others.
Some of the most successful attorneys that I know in the country, were just caught up at different speeds. They didn't get what they wanted right away, but they kept trying.
You need to keep doing what you're doing and not give up. I'll tell you a couple quick stories. Two of them are successful attorneys that I know in the country.
One of the most successful attorneys that I know in the country was an attorney in New York. And he I don't know how many times, but it was something like four or five times probably cause he was working so hard, but he didn't pass the bar exam. And no one talks about it anymore because he's powerful. I'm not even gonna mention his name because I don't want to even put the information out there about who he is. It's just, it doesn't matter. And now he's an incredible attorney who have huge clients. But imagine that person's feeling when they kept failing again and again, and started off a big firm that lost a job after failing a couple of times, another one. [00:02:00] But, it landed on them.
Another attorney I know went to a top law school and just like you and just same thing with the first attorney and got a summer associate and not a great from like a midsize firm. Didn't get an offer and then failed the bar and then eventually got a job, but it was with a small, tiny little firm. And now is head of the office of one of the top law firms in the world and I'm still quite young.
So you have to understand that, many times, whatever the course is, people throw things in your direction. Some people aren't ready when they take the bar exam. Some people aren't ready when they interview with firms the first time. Some people aren't ready, even when they're trying to get a job the second time. Some people aren't ready when they apply to law schools. Some people aren't ready when they're in law school.
That doesn't mean that you failed. That just means something that's testing your resilience, and the only solution to all this is to put your head down and do exactly what you're doing.
I'm telling you, one of these people that I just brought up to you is someone that went and read all [00:03:00] my stuff and studied it and became a student of it. And I don't know anything special. I'm just have a skill of observing, watching, and seeing what works and interested in self improvement. It's not that I've necessarily done all this stuff as an attorney myself, I just watched other people and do this every day of the week and talk to people all day long.
My advice to you is, you can't worry about yourself. You have to believe that there's something outside yourself, that's bigger than you that's controlling everything that happens. And if you put your energy into things and do the best you can, you will begin putting on the appearance of someone that looks like they belong in a big firm and doing everything you possibly can,
I'm going to give you a two book recommendation that for me, personally, changed my life. One of them is Think and Grow Rich, which has all this stuff about persistence and all of this sort of thing, very famous book. One of the most famous books ever. Also, like Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins. I read think and grow rich first, and then I read it that. Those books really helped me.[00:04:00] I use these quite a bit when I was your age or assuming your age. I think, grow rich is actually out of print. You can just probably get a PDF of it online. But, both of these books, mainly thinking, grow rich, talk about, having goals and manifesting things. And then, people talk about all these different principles, like manifesting stuff, but manifesting basically means Imagine where you want to be, and spend 15 minutes a night thinking about that. I would look at being there and that's something that the most successful people in the world have done. They manifest things by thinking about them. I don't know that manifests is the right word cause they certainly talk about it and think and grow rich. They talk about it and unlimited power, you just need to imagine what it is you want. And then once you start doing that, what happens is your subconscious will take you there. Right now, you're imagining you're in your own mind, and you're comparing yourself to others and that's not healthy.
You don't want to be in that state. You want to be in a state where you're doing the best you can. You need to be external. Your external is, how can I [00:05:00] provide?
There was a girl that I hired once that worked for me as an attorney in my office. I don't think she liked working for me very much, but that doesn't really matter. And what she did, that was very interesting, she'd always say I want to do this for you. I want to see what else I can do. I want to try to do better. I want to do this. I want to do this. And it was very external. Motivated, even though she didn't like her job. And before she started, she wrote a really nice note thanking me for the job. The day after she started, she wrote a note, thanking to me for the job. And then a year later when she quit, she also wrote me a very nice note. Thanking me for the job.
Everything she did was very externally focused and very impressive, actually. And she didn't like the job because it was too stressful. And it wasn't what she bargained for, but she managed to be external about it to keep herself happy and keep myself happy and she's going to do very well doing other things.
But the point is you have to think externally and not internally. And I think that if you do, that's going to help you.
