Leader Rising Paul Karvanis

Have you ever wondered what made happy people happy? And what about what made unhappy people unhappy? Truth be told, I’ve wondered it a lot. I’ve had good reason to. Over the 12 years of my legal career, I’ve spent quite a lot of time unhappy. I didn’t want this to be my life.

So I committed to coaching and to Leader Rising. I’ve been making progress.

But some time in 2021, I had a big idea. I was going to write a book. A book that would help lawyers everywhere get happier, so that they didn’t need to go down my deep rabbit hole to get there.

And thus was born my dream of the Happy Lawyer book.

As of the time of writing, I have completed 75 interviews of lawyers - happy lawyers, miserable lawyers, and lawyers in between. Some have been in private practice, others in-house, and a few had left law altogether.

I pulled out patterns from among the happy lawyers and miserable lawyers.

And I’ve taken these patterns, mixed them with my ~500 hours of coaching clients, as well as with my own life experience and the wisdom I’ve taken from many of the top personal improvement books, and I’ve created …. (I hope you’re doing a drumroll over there ):

The Happy Lawyer Happiness Model.

Want to learn more about it? Give this episode a listen.

​I was listening to a podcast (Minds and Mics with Nick Wignall) recently. He was interviewing Michael Bungay Stanier about his book How to Begin and they spoke a lot about reclaiming your ambition. The main point of Michael’s book is to get started.


Not to finish your dream.


Just to start.


That first step is such a huge step towards achieving those dreams. And those dreams will probably change during the course of your journey.


Starting is the biggest step. There’s so much value in the momentum.


And Michael proposes some questions to help kick start that journey.

- What’s the benefit of the status quo?

- What’s the benefit of your big dream?


Now I love these questions. And they got me thinking about other questions that I thought would be super useful to someone who is stuck in the space before they start:


- What’s at risk by pursuing your dream?

- What’s at risk by leaving the status quo?

- What are you afraid of? What’s behind that?

- What are you holding on too tight to?


I believe that these questions are incredibly useful for anyone who is stuck.


A lot of the stuck people who I’ve seen have been stuck because they weren’t being clear enough with themselves about all of the competing internal desires, nor how worried some of those internal parts were. The more they tried to ignore those worried parts, the more entrenched those parts got, the more stuck they got.


Think of it this way: If your car was stuck in a snowy street and 5 people pushed from the front and 5 from the back, you wouldn’t move anywhere.





Similarly, if the parts of your mind are not working together to achieve a common goal, it’s harder to move forward and you end up stuck.


If you're interested in hearing more about this, you're in luck. This week's podcast episode is all about it.

It’s been almost two months since the last podcast episode. A lot happened in that two months. The biggest of which, of course, was the omicron COVID-19 wave which caused schools to shut down and me to be at home with both of my boys.

I had to take a step back. To consolidate, and to focus on what’s important. I kept coaching, but stopped recording the podcast.

So, fast forward to a couple of days ago when I had time to myself for the first time in over two months. It was weird. And it was tough, too.

Throughout 2021 I was writing a lot. So I thought I’d try and get that back.

I set myself a timer - 20 minutes.

Just do what you can with 20 minutes.

Immediately my brain says, “You’re taking too long. It’s not going to be good. You might as well do something else that’s more productive.”

I also found myself getting very distracted. I tried to power through. It sort of worked. I ended up taking breaks, but also kept writing. It got a bit better over the 20 minutes - the last 2 minutes were easier and more productive than the first 2.

This story, to me, illustrates two things:

Focus is a muscle. And I hadn’t flexed it in a long time.

Being kind to myself was really helpful in allowing myself to build my focus again.

Focus was a habit I needed to build again. And the most important part of building a habit is showing up. We don’t walk into the gym for the first time and expect to lift 300 lbs.

As soon as I was more kind to myself, I started getting into the flow, writing without thinking, and doing some good work.

So, whatever it is on your plate right now, just do it. Just show up for yourself.

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.

What’s your answer - what’s the one thing YOU want most for your kids? Think about it if you need to, but do land on an answer.

We’ll get to my answer in a second. First, let me set the stage: I’m at a coffee event with other entrepreneurs and although I had been talking to these people virtually for a year and a half, and this was the first time I was meeting any of them in person.

I was asked to talk about my dream. Well, I dream of a world where we can be ourselves, be happy, and where we don’t get in our own way. I’ve often thought “Paul, you have all the ingredients to be happy. Why aren’t you happy?”

Afterward, my mentor turns to me and asks “Paul, what do you want most for your kids?”

Without hesitating, I said, “I want them to be happy.” Easy. Of course every parent wants their kids to be happy.

And he said that happiness is just one portion of the normal range of human emotions that we experience in our lives. Am I wishing for them to not have a full experience of being human?

And what about those moments when they do inevitably feel unhappy. Does that mean they’re failing themselves, or failing me? Or that I failed them as a parent.

No. No, chasing happy isn’t the right goal.

Upon reflection, the thing I want the most for my kids is to love themselves unconditionally.

So how do I help them do that?

Brené Brown says, “You can’t give someone else something you don’t have.”

I remember the first time I heard this. I thought “look I respect Brené and all, but this can’t be right. I may not be able to give myself unconditional love, but I can certainly give it to my kids.”

But I’ve found that that’s not actually true. Turns out that my conditions get imposed on them too. Those conditions are especially imposed when we’re talking about how I show my love, which when you think about it is what really matters - since that’s the way my kids experience it.

Well ###, I guess then if I want them to love themselves unconditionally, I need to love myself unconditionally first.

So how does one do that? I’m not totally sure, but I’ve got some theories.

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.

A number of years back I thought, “I’m done with being a lawyer” - and I approached my wife about it. She wasn’t that supportive. Or at least, I didn’t feel supported.

I was really mad about it. And I held that resentment for a while.

Until I sat down and asked myself if I was ready to leave.

And I realized with embarrassment and a little bit of shame, that I was not ready to quit being a lawyer. That I was too afraid.

The problem had never been my wife. It had always been me. I was looking to her to solve my problem for me.

This happens a lot in our lives, where the problem seems easy to fix, but we have diagnosed the problem all wrong.

And the solution can’t come until we keep our eyes open and assess the problem for what it is.

Often, solving the “problem” will make the situation worse. On the bright side, sometimes trying to solve what you think the problem is will help you diagnose the real, underlying problem.

So keep working through it, keep pushing, keep your eyes open and your chin up.

I would love to hear what you think about this.

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.

My son needed to go to the bathroom while we were all getting ready for the day. He ran back upstairs and yelled down that he needed help turning on the lights.

I went up and turned on the light in the bathroom and the hallway.

He said, “no, I need all of the lights on upstairs. Every bedroom.”

That was dumb. So obviously, I did what any parent would say early in the morning when they’re not thinking clearly:

I said no.

That didn’t go over well. We got into a classic standoff.

What if this happened every single time? What precedent are we setting? I also wanted to teach him to be conservative with his energy usage.

I wanted to teach. I wanted to be a good parent.

It reminded me of what a client had said when he brought a problem to me. He was about to give particularly difficult feedback to someone, and I asked him what his strategy was going to be.

He said, “Look, it’s not going to be hard. I’ll just give him feedback about the impact on me and mostly I’ll just make sure I’m not trying to be right.”

With my son, I was trying to be right. And it made it a lot harder.

Instead of meeting him where he was.

I would love to hear what you think about this.

Join us this week as we discuss this and more.