The Curse of Almost Happy

Though I doubt that many of you noticed I was gone, I've taken almost a month and a half off from blogging. I've been working on the next LexThink event (though not enough -- more on that later), turned 40 and traveled to London (twice) and Paris to facilitate a few sessions for XPLANE.

While I've been working, eating and drinking my way through Europe, a few things hit me. Call it a mid-life crisis, or just a wake-up call, but while I have a good life, an incredible daughter, and the support of great people around me, I realized that I'm not happy.

Just Almost Happy.

I've lead much of my life in this perpetual state of what I'll call "Almost Happiness" that has (until this summer) been more than enough. However, taking my daughter to her first day of kindergarten and meeting a handful of people here and abroad who possess an incredible passion for their work and a single-minded belief that they're going to change the world has persuaded me to step back, take a look at my priorities and decide that Almost Happy isn't enough.

I'm rejecting Almost Happy. I'm saying "Close Enough" isn't anymore. I'm tired of leaving so many opportunities waiting at the dooruntil they grow tired of knocking and decide to move on down the block. I'm inspired to find my One Thing to make the world better.

I resolve to:

• Follow my passions, honor my principles and strive to create something new every single day.
• Nurture my intelligence, creativity, passion and wit, and judge my life by the things I experience and not the things I possess.
• Refuse to let one day go by without realizing that my daughter is my purpose in life, and to build my life for her, not around her.
• Focus on delivering “amazing” and “way beyond ordinary” in everything I chose to do.
• Choose my clients as carefully as friends, knowing that I work best when they are one in the same.

And this blog is where I'm going to be sharing my journey. But don't worry, I'm not abandoning the underlying purpose of this blog: to make lawyers better. In fact, I'm going to embrace it. You'll see lots more ideas, original thinking and links to amazing, outside-the-box content. I'm going to make this blog (and LexThink) the place to go for lawyers out to dramatically change their practice.

I hope you'll come along for the ride!