Anyone attending last week's Sharing Success Seminar will understand that the title to this blog is not as boring as it seems. Take-Away #1: Be mindful of the "Wonderful/Detrimental Continuum" in communicating. Specifically, we learned on Thursday morning that our brains are hard-wired to listen to all of the elements of a list, provided the speaker enumerates the list in advance. This is particularly important for women lawyers, whether in the courtroom or the boardroom. The presentation on communication also encouraged the audience to 1) draw conclusions up front, 2) stop verbal multitasking, 3) stop repeating (repeatitis), 4) avoid expressing self-doubt, 5) be selective in using self-deprecating humor; what may be endearing in casual conversation is damaging in meetings and presentations, and 6) use active, singular voice.
Take-Away #2: Go dancing. Happiness seems to be an elusive concept, according to the seminar's first speaker on Thursday. And particularly for women lawyers. "Weird" principles of achieving happiness were identified, though: 1) align key life domains with temporal sweetspots (i.e., you may not be in the "good mom" sweet spot when you are rushing the kids out the door to meet the 7:30 a.m. bus and you are headed into rush hour traffic yourself, but you may be in the "good mom" sweet spot at 7:30 p.m. if you enjoy cooking dinner and this time is relaxing with your kids); 2) work on projects you love and eliminate depleting projects and people from your life; 3) lower expectations because "expectations-reality=happiness"; 4) create a reward system for tasks/projects completed; 5) carve out clear areas of incompetency (e.g., family finances, taking out the garbage, grocery shopping, planning vacations); 6) cultivate sticky memories (the vacation pictures remind you of a wonderful, relaxing respite, despite the reality of car sickness, getting lost, sunburns); and 7) improve your sense of humor. And if acquiring a sense of humor is daunting, go dancing.
T. Sky Woodward
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
swoodward@wcsr.com
