In this UNLAWYERLY. special Ramin was invited to speak at Alpha Kappa Psi's Professional Business Leadership Institute where he discussed how to take an unorthodox approach to your personal and professional growth.
In this UNLAWYERLY. special Ramin was invited to speak at Alpha Kappa Psi's Professional Business Leadership Institute where he discussed how to take an unorthodox approach to your personal and professional growth.
00:00
Testing. Testing possibility of files below My ability. So a little bit As you guys start to slowly quiet down and hopefully realize that there was a presenter amongst you guys. Well, we're here to do As slowly start quieting down. I know you guys are all excited and it's great to see the enthusiasm.
00:31
We're here to talk about disruption. We're here to talk about doing things differently and what often happens when you do things, out of the norm, do things that are not traditionally done. You start to get head turns, You start to get a sense of maybe discomfort from others. You get a sense that maybe what you're doing, You shouldn't be.
01:00
But what we're here today to do, is to talk about this challenge, This challenge to redefine success. Now, I have to tell you guys at the very forefront, let me close this door that I have, As I do this. Oh, come on and we got one more person, that's great.
01:18
Maybe one more, come on, and the door's about the clothes were about to launch. So, what I'm here to tell you at the very forefront is I have a podcast. I like my podcast a lot, I want to be recording. So if anybody here, and it's audio not visual, if anybody here for whatever reason does not want to be part of this very great podcast.
01:38
By the way, you're more than welcome to quietly. Leave. No judgments. But we will stare at you while you're leaving. No. But seriously, if you do feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, no judgments at all. You are welcome to leave but I will be recording because it's a topic that I think it's worth sending out the message to.
02:01
But for those of you who are here to stay, Let's do story time And as my kids, and I move around a lot. So you don't have to feel like you need to turn to to catch me. I look the same way from front back As my kids would say Papa.
02:16
Is this going to start with a once upon a time? And it's not It's not a once upon a time type story. The story does though began with the story of a boy who came to the US as a refugee, as an immigrant. And as is often the case with people who come in as refugees or immigrants, they've left the lives that they had for one reason or another, and they're back here building it up.
02:45
And part of that, at least in the US is this idea of the American dream And part of that American dream has to do with this idea of success. And so it wasn't any different for this particular boy Very early on. He realized the formula for success work hard.
03:05
That's cool. At least Giga grades, you get recognition, get praise. Get some type of affirmation for it and you rinse and repeat, you continue to do the same thing. So either that Gaga grades got recognized and continue to move up. He that well in school he ended up graduating and went to a pretty well-known university which I am biased about of course.
03:30
But as is often the case at college, you meet some very strange individuals, You meet people who are going to challenge the way that you think and it wasn't any different for this particular boy One night. His group of friends were driving, they're going back to their dorms and they were just having conversations about God knows what just about everything.
03:53
How's is often the case when you when you're with your friends outside of class you're talking about just about everything And so they got on this idea of success and his friend asks him How do you define success? Stop the boy in his tracks. How do I define success?
04:16
What a weird question. He thought. Because look, if I were to pull just about every single one of you, or if I were to pull for those of you who may remember from statistics class, you know, the bell curve. I guarantee that where the bell curve is in the middle.
04:32
The average Most of us would have the very same notions of success. If you were to go on your social media account, whatever it may be Instagram, Facebook TikTok even LinkedIn, you play the scrolling game people, give you their definition of success, and it's all very much. The same for the most part.
04:54
This is Boy said well I define success like anybody else do? Well, get a good job. Make money, climb up the corporate ladder, maybe start my own business. Have a family. Have the car. Have the house. What else is there travel? He says wait How do you define success?
05:17
So his friend gives him his response and his response from his friend baffles him even more than the initial question. Now, what was his response? I'm not gonna tell you guys it's not necessary, it's not important but we will get into this idea of success. So, life goes on, He goes back to his dorm.
05:37
He does. Well, he does exactly what he says it's gonna do. Graduates gets a good job starts making that money starts, moving up, the career starts getting the title. You got the house, he got the cars, he got the family But one thing he realized that at every interval of his life, Every aspect of it as he was continuing to move up the the social ranks.
06:00
So to speak, while he was extremely grateful, he realized that as happiness was ephemeral, It was short lived. And so just cause them to want to do more than the average person to keep being recognized. But he realized that Perhaps his friend was onto something and he kept thinking back to that question, how do you define success?
06:31
Now, that's the end of our story. Let's talk a little bit about who I am Now. I don't know if you they gave you guys the bios for people who are here or if you guys even care to read it. But when they ask me for my bio, My bio is a little bit different at least I think.
06:50
So, This was my bio that I gave for AK Psi. I was a kid with a vision. I went to school and became a CPA I became energized. So, I went into energy hustled my way into my own business. I thought teaching was cool. So I became a professor, Then I threw law school in the Nixon became a power lawyer in Big Law, I realized life is short.
07:12
So I left. So I left the dream job in Big Law and traded the money for my time back. Now I focus on being a good dad and a husband growing spiritually being mindful of my well-being while working to small to change my small world one perspective at a time.
07:33
That's my story When I and I went to UVA. I was part of the Alpha gamma chapter and also AK SCI Academy fellow because at the time, when I went to UVA, our chapter wasn't doing so well. And I realized that changes need to happen. And after that year, we ended up changing by a lot.
07:49
And now the chapters doing very well But after UVA, I decided, hey, I'm gonna go into business. Haha, no trick there. And I became a CPA. When I became a CPA, I entered the big four. All right. I was an auditor by trade and I did that. I just realized something was missing For any of you who are going to accounting who CPA or any thinking about the big four, it's a great field, an area to be on, It helped me launch my career and to other aspects of it but something was missing.
08:22
So energy came in the mix. One of my friends called me. I'll share a little bit more about this. He said, hey, I remember me. You ever thought about working in the government said, no, Have you ever thought about energy, Never in my wildest dreams? Like you don't go to school saying at least during the time that I was in school, I'm gonna go into do something with energy.
08:40
Like what does that even mean? But that's what I did in the mix. I started my own business. I still have it to this day. It's a tax business. I enjoy it. I became a professor. I had the opportunity to be able to teach I taught at GW, And then my dad kept saying Ramin.
08:59
I just can see you doing something else. And I'm like, man, this guy really hates CPAs. So I said, okay, what can I do? I decided naturally, let me go to law school and when I went to law school, I was working full-time. And I was going to law school in the evenings because that fit in with my definition of success, do more and be more than the person sitting next to you.
09:22
And it's funny because in law school, the very first day was a room bigger than this. One of the professors comes in looks at us, the very first thing he says, as the light is shining bright, my eyes is look to your left. Look to your right. These two are not going to be employed and it was a rude awakening because we're like, hey, we're gonna leave with a whole bunch of debt and we're gonna be unemployed.
09:50
That's the way to do it. But sure enough we suck it through and I was fortunate enough that I played my cards, right? I did my homework and I was one of the very few to place into a big law firm, a very well-known firm. Name is not important, But I start a big law And I'll tell you this around the time that I was in law school.
10:11
Just to kind of give you my definition of success. I was working full-time. I was going to school part-time which was pretty much full-time. I was running my own business. I was also teaching as a professor and my wife and I decided, hey, why not? Let's have a kitten.
10:26
So there's a lot going on but it fit into that idea. How many balls could I juggle at once to be able to show that? Hey, I am a success. But look, this story is not necessarily about me. It's to provide you an example. I think that in life, we live by examples.
10:45
But what do you think happened? What do you think happened with this whole notion idea of the American dream? The success that came with everything else. I certainly had the money. I certainly had the title. I have plenty of careers. I was a few years away from becoming partner and the trajectory that I was in over here, our power lord, and it doesn't mean because I have vanity that I'm a self-complant proclaimed, power lawyer.
11:10
I was working in energy, renewables, solar wind, and if you guys are keeping up with the news, it's not going anywhere. I was at the peak of my career. What do you think I did? And look, this is a Brotherhood, we're all friendly. This is a discussion. I would like participation if you're willing to do so, but this, this session is about disruption.
11:30
So there's no right answer as they always say, Sometimes they're not there. As I will tell my son, one plus, one is two until you get into advanced math and you realize there are differences. But what do you think happened? Yes. Did you like change your tradictory again because you didn't feel like fulfilled with what you interesting?
11:48
Did I change my trajectory again? Yeah. What else? What do you think happened? Yes, finally. Hit a wall and a challenge that you just phase with everything else going on. That's a very interesting take that. I hit a wall and some respects. I think I did. Yes. What happened?
12:08
Kind of goes with that idea. Now, look, I've told this story to close friends, especially around the time that I was thinking to do these things and they're like, Romine, are you just not being grateful for the things that a lot of people? When they look at your life, You've been able to do some of the things that not that people would dream of.
12:26
And again it's not to self boast. I don't believe in boasting but it's just that people were asking what are you doing? Are you hitting a midlife crisis? Are you getting to a point where you know as much as I would like to think that I'm young, I know I'm getting older but what happened?
12:40
Was this idea of the great resignation in the big quit? I retired. Now I've heard it all people are like for me and you're taking a sabbatical, you're taking some time off, you're gonna get back into it. What guys? It's a it's almost been nine months and I'm still retired.
12:57
I don't plan on going back. Who can tell me about the great resignation in the big quit. And not, there's a reason why I'm asking about this Who knows about the great resignation and Bigfoot. Yes, From what I understand the great designation would happen. At least from my understanding the accounting fashion where a lot of people were when COVID hit and everything they were realizing like oh I'm missing out on all this time with my kids with my family it made them spend more time at home and enjoyed that and they were like oh there is more to life than just climbing the corporate ladder.
13:26
Okay, very good. What else? Great resignation and bigger. You guys have heard of it, right? It was, you know, you haven't, and that's fine. It's this trend. This movement that's been coming up in COVID, was a big, big stimulus for it. So to speak, When I decided to retire the great resignation in the big quit had informally come out For me.
13:50
It was because I was tackling with this idea of how am I going to define success. And that's why I put this is not your grandparents retirement because when people are like, well remain, do you just sit on your butt all day and just like not do anything? No, I'm a very active person.
14:06
I started my own podcast. I have my own business But I started to shift what I was investing in. We'll go into that a little bit But the great resignation and big quit as Ariana Huffington put it it's really the great revaluation People set. Stop. What is truly going on in my life?
14:29
Is what I'm doing where I want to be, or do I need to start making changes non-traditional career? Trajectories I think that's why maybe a lot of you are here. I don't know. Maybe the, the title of it was very catchy, maybe was one of those clickbait type things.
14:46
The challenge to redefine success. Who does this guy think he is but has to do about non-traditional career trajectories and I've had a non-traditional career trajectory Yes, I've done traditional careers. I was a CPA in Big 4. I still have my CPA, I'm a lawyer now Professor whatever, whatever.
15:04
But with non-traditional career trajectories and I imagine the vast majority of you are and college maybe second or third year sophomores juniors. Okay. I still have the UVA lingo of second and third year we're sophomore juniors. But look, first thing that I need you guys to, at least keep in mind, the idea of opening the mind and shifting perspectives, This is where I go into Once Upon a time.
15:30
Once upon a time, the career trajectory was like this straight line. So you hit a wall But most people worked 30, 40 years at a career. They climbed up the corporate ladder, which was fine. They got a pension, at the end of them that was done. But what happened Around the time that I was starting my career There was this generational divide and it started with millennials and moved on out What most of the boomers were concerned with.
16:04
Was these younger generations? They're not going to go in the straight line anymore. They're going to start moving around, It's no longer linear. They're going to shift from one place to another and it caused a sense of anxiousness, because now the workforce was also starting to change because a lot of us decided, hey, we are going to start to do somethings differently.
16:32
So, around the time when, for example, I was in Big Four, I just looked around. And for me, I did not see people and this was just a very biased perspective. I did not see people that were very happy, especially busy season. When busy season, spewed out into the entire year, I just realized for me I was like I gotta make a change, I can't keep doing this And it's funny because when you're ready to make a change and you put your intention out there.
17:00
The biggest thing is making that intention The right. People are going to come in your life, One of my friends calls me up. He says, hey remaine, how are you doing? And he was working in Big 4 with me too. On the IT side. I said yeah, things are going well, could be better.
17:13
He's like, hey, I'm working at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the FERC Have you ever thought about working in government? This is where that aspect of my story comes in to give you guys an example. And I said, you know, I haven't but I am open to it and he said, what about energy, never in my wildest dreams like I said, what I have thought that I would go into some aspect up energy.
17:36
It wasn't a career path that I was thinking about but I said, you know what? I'm ready to make a change man. Get me in touch with whoever I need to speak with. Let's see if we can get the balls in motion And I was still working as a CPA as an auditor, but I made that shift Now.
17:51
A lot of people were saying Romine again at that point in time you should work five years in big four because then you can become a manager, you can get your worth In my mind. I'm like, so the firm can get a return on its equity for having me as an associate during the summer.
18:04
I don't think so But I decide you know what, it's a gamble. I'm willing to take because it fit in with the idea that I'm not necessarily married to this particular career trajectory Now.
18:19
Who can tell me what this is And it's not a trick question guys. What's this? A water bottle. A water bottle. Thank you. It is. Now, my next question was going to be what's in it, but you're like two steps ahead of me. I think it's water. There's a delicious beverage in here, which if you don't mind, I'm gonna remove my mask.
18:41
Still good. There's a reason why I'm asking you this. There is in fact, water in here. I'm a big fan of Batman and then there's some Arabic writing in the background because my sister put something in there. That's been washed up. What is this? It's my kids' lunch. Container.
18:59
There's nothing in here. Now, if I were to ask you again, these this is not a trick question, guys. There's a reason why I'm doing this. What's going to happen? When I pour the contents of this beverage, which is water into this container, it's going to take its shape.
19:19
That's exactly what he did. Nothing fancy about this. Now, why am I doing this? Why am I telling you this? You know, one thing I've learned as a when I was teaching, the best way to teach are through stories and through examples and demonstrations, This will stay in your mind.
19:34
Even if you think it's stupid Water is fluid, it does take the shape of the container that it's in When you are looking at your careers. Whether you want to say remain, I'm going to be a traditional career person and just do things the way that it's always been.
19:50
That's fine, no judgments. But I think that the vast majority of you are not going to do that way. And part of that has to do with, you need to be fluid, You need to be ready to make changes. You need to be ready to do something that perhaps you thought that you weren't going to do.
20:07
Now you're thinking well for me that's what you've done. Doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be what I am going to do, probably But even if it's not your career and your personal life too, there are going to be changes where you are going to have to be fluid where you are going to have to change.
20:23
It doesn't mean that you compromise morals values or things that are important for you. Not at all. But it does mean that you have to look at it from the perspective that perhaps, maybe I need to See things for what they can be. Now, when I was making that shift into energy, I had no idea that I was going to lead me to become a power, lawyer to go into law school.
20:45
And then from there to essentially work on renewables cross-border transactions, all of that. But in life, you have to see things for what they can be. And also for what they're not, which comes with the idea of being honest with yourselves and the course of your career and also your personal life because I think a lot of us too, often were not honest with ourselves and at the end of it, the only person that ends up hurting.
21:12
There's not going to be your social media account as far as your followers, your influencers. If that's even important, It's not going to impact your friends. It's not going to impact your family or perhaps it won't, it's gonna impact you and where you're at. So, you have to see things for what they can be.
21:31
And so What does that mean? When to say yes? And when to say no Everybody here, I think has driven at least once or twice. And on the road we see signs. You see stop sign. You see, hazard whatever type of sign there may be and often we'll pay attention to it.
21:49
You know, sometimes you'll do a California roll on the stoplight and hopefully there's no cop or anything behind you. I'll tell you this. Even as a lawyer and I do transactional work, but I've also been in court numerous times when a cop pulls me over, you kind of get in that mode.
22:03
Like oh, what did I just do? How do I get out of this? But the signs are there for a reason. And we, as human beings, each and every single one of us, I don't like this in the way, but I'm just gonna move. We have this ability, thank you.
22:17
That there's an inner voice that whispers thinks to us. But what have we learned to do? We've learned the silence, the whispers, It's called intuition. It's called the universe whatever you want to call it. We has human beings have learned to quiet that voice because It's stupid. It doesn't make sense.
22:42
What is it telling me? But there are plenty of signs around you. Now, for me this decision to leave everything that I had worked so hard for did not happen overnight. I had been struggling with the idea and notion of success in achieving success. For some time, if my wife were here, she could tell you numerous nights, we talked about what do I want to do?
23:08
Do I really want to leave big law? Do I really want to? You know, Let's make it seem like I gave up and my throwing in the towel. But then I started to be honest with myself because I realized for the longest time there were these signs where I just wasn't enjoying what I was doing or I wasn't reaching what I thought would be considered my potential.
23:28
So we do have signs in front of us. We just have to start listening. It was when I started to start listening to it when I realized that you know what certain changes need to happen. So in your own lives, there's going to be plenty of signs. Something's not going to feel, right?
23:45
Someone's going to rub you the wrong way. And I'll talk a little bit about corporate culture too for work purposes and even amongst friends and family. But there are going to be situations where it's just gonna feel weird And look, You should be out of your comfort zone to a certain extent, That's when there's pressure on us.
24:03
We grow, but not to your detriment. You have to learn to listen to the signs. Be eager and looking out for yourselves. Now, when when I graduated and I started working, I think about one or two years out. I came back to Alpha gamma and I did a presentation for them and the presentation was the real truth about corporate America.
24:24
What the recruiters and career services. Don't want you to know.
24:30
Because look, The vast majority of the times We're told to be a team player and you should be You should be to a certain extent. But at the end of the day, the companies that you work for and look, I'm not a hater for these companies. They're doing a lot of them are doing great things.
24:47
At the end of the day, when push comes to shove, you're just another person. Another number and they will find a way to replace you. It's for those of you who have taken some type of corporate law, it's sometimes the fiduciary responsibility of those at the top to find value for their shareholders.
25:06
And you while you may think that you're valuable and I think that your valuable, I think everybody plays an important role and whatever aspect of structure that you are in companies at the end, have to make tough decisions. And it's not that they're being facetious. It's not that they're being Elwell as part of their corporate responsibility too.
25:25
So you have to look out for yourself. Now, there are a lot of companies that do look out for their employees and they will put out measures One of those. For example, when I became a dad, This idea of paternity leave. And it's funny because right when I started big law and I was the first year associate and I was eager, I wanted to do things but I also have our second child on the way.
25:49
So what do I do? Do I make a bad impression or what I thought was about impression and tell them, hey, I've been working here for like two weeks, but I need to take three months off of fraternity, leave or whatever. It was at that time which wasn't three months But one of the things that I did and looking out for myself, when I was interviewing at the various firms, I looked at the people at the very top.
26:10
And in this particular firm that I was in that I was interviewing the CEOs story. Fascinated me. She was a woman. She is a woman who was chairperson and in big law. There's very far and few in between for women to be at the very top. So, I looked into her story and that intrigued me even more.
26:33
She was working at the firm. She ended up having kids. She took time off. She came back, she moved up. I'm sure it wasn't easy, especially at that time and she became chairperson for me. The reason why that was important in terms of me, looking out for myself because it made me realize that you have someone.
26:51
I'm not saying that dads are father figures or males or however, you want to look at parent. Figures would not do the same. But for me, her story, intrigued me because I realized in the course of interviewing that that was a priority for the firm. And so, for me, I realized that hey, I'm thinking about having other kids, too.
27:09
This would fit in line but you have to learn to look out for yourself because at the end of the day, nobody else will. I've interviewed a lot. Okay, I've interviewed a lot now. Meme when I was on the other side and I was interviewing somebody. How many of you here have gotten the question if you have interviewed for whatever aspect that may be?
27:33
What do you want to do? That's a common question that they ask at interviews and it's a question that bugs me. Because look a lot of us, don't know what we want to do. We go into school? We're immediately we're told hey think of what you want to do within two years and you kind of figure out what you want to get your bachelor's in or your master's and look when I interview I asked that question too.
27:59
I'd say, hey, What do you want to do? But I would say look it's not a question where I'm trying to get you, I understand that. Perhaps maybe you don't know what you want to do At my age right now. I'm still figuring a life out and I've had more than one career but it's a question that is almost asked.
28:21
And so you have to do this at every interval of your career at the end of it is you have to learn to set boundaries Now during the course of those interviews this idea and notion of setting boundaries would come up and they would look at me like Ramin you're a couple of years.
28:39
And why are you telling me as a first year associate to set boundaries? And this is why The people who you're working for. I guarantee it because I did it at every interval of my career. No, shame into it. I said, boundaries for the things that were important for me.
28:54
I told them look Fridays and for those of you who may or may not have listened to my podcast, my faith is very important for me. The very first thing that I do at any particular interview. Let's say, look Fridays. I got to go to prayer. I go to congregation Service and the reason why I would ask it at the interview and of course, by law.
29:14
They're not supposed to say that you can't but you can get an idea for the feeling, But I would ask them a very uncomfortable question. Maybe look Fridays. I go, I need to go to Friday prayer. Of course, make up my work. But is that going to be anything that I need to know about?
29:29
I learned to set boundaries early on because at the end of it, if something happens and they've crossed those boundaries and you haven't told them what the boundaries are. Well they didn't know about it. You can't say, well, this was important for me, they're gonna say, I didn't know to, I promise you People are going to respect you especially the people that you're working for.
29:49
And even in your own lives, we've all had those friends or family members where, you know, they kind of get into our circle, They get into the uncomfortable zones that we don't want them to keep crossing setting boundaries is not anything bad to be looked at, but it's important because you tell them, Hey, this is important.
30:09
We're going to be talking about value systems a little bit. When we talk about navigating the unorthodox way orders before you get Look, a lot of times you have opportunities to to kind of test a career out. There's internships, there's some are associate programs. Whatever the case may be, These are perfect opportunities for you to test the waters.
30:31
Now, when I was in, I'm trying to think when it was, It might have been at the tail end of my high school mind you. So this is very early on One of the opportunities I had, was this, this very nice guy, he was an accountant. He worked for the Department of Defense, a career services or whatever they were doing, we were able to.
30:52
I was able to do a shadowing who in your husband, to any of the Department of Defense, locations, Pentagon or yeah. Are there windows? Okay, that's not the reason I'm saying this. It's not. You feel like you're going through amazing. It's done like that for a reason. I had no idea where I was.
31:09
God forbid, if emergency happened, it's a good thing. My the guy was there to shadow, was there. I would have no idea where to go and plus they lock the door, so it doesn't make difference. But anyway, we were interviewing and he was telling me about his his job.
31:29
I fell asleep. I fell asleep because I remember waking up and he still talking but I'm like there's like two minutes, three minutes of it that I had no idea what was said, what was done. And fortunately I guess he was like, really into what he was doing, which is great.
31:45
He had found his passion but I fell asleep. I don't know if this is for me at least working in the type of thing that he was doing The other aspect of it was. So, when I came into Bigelow and I interviewed, and fortunately, I wowed the hiring partner because I was able to read out what the firms mission statement was and I guess nobody else had done it because after that the hiring partner just stopped and he said we mean nobody has told me our mission statement and be able to tie it in with how you can add value right there.
32:19
I knew that I had the the summer associate position in the bag experience and corporate and regulatory and transactional energy. What do you want to do? And of course, I gave him an answer at that point in time, But one of the things that I did was I paid attention to people working at the firm.
32:44
I listened, I asked questions and I observed And one of the things I realized was the corporate group had a high turnover rate. They are high burnout rate and I told myself, if I were to go into the corporate route as far as corporate law, that's probably going to be me.
33:04
So I stayed away from it and I didn't tell them, hey, I don't want to do corporate because I'm afraid of burnout is that I said, hey look I think I want to do something more related to. I was being honest with myself and what I was telling them was the truth.
33:17
I wanted to do energy related work, I didn't want to do corporate But you have to test the waters before you begin with anything that you're doing whether it's your personal or your professional life because there will be opportunities where you can ask questions where you guys at in the interviewing process.
33:35
I imagine juniors. You guys will be interviewing come this summer for Associate positions or summer associate positions. If that's the route. You're taking How many of you have done any interviews?
33:49
How many of you have reached out to career services to find alumni? That works at a particular firm. But perhaps you have an interview with It's a good strategy in. Here's why You say hey look I'm so-and-so and of course during this time is a little bit difficult zoom meetings whatnot.
34:09
But hey can I pick your brain for a little bit? And most people look, if somebody were to reach out to me, I know they went to a particular school or they worked or through some other colleague. I'm more than happy to help them out. Figure out, hey, what's really the culture of a particular firm?
34:28
Like because look, you can have the best profession. The best job the best title. But if the environment that you're working in sucks, your life is not going to be great. And I've had opportunities where I've been in. I say it's an opportunity because it's a learning experience where I've been with groups, where I have cringed at the thought and idea of working another day, at that particular firm to groups where they've looked out for my best interest and we've been a working team and it makes a world of a difference.
34:59
That's all when people often ask me if they're thinking about going to law school at this particular M-Law top firm. What do you think about it? I said well the firm has a great reputation.
35:14
They're like, well, why is that important? I tell them every day that you go into work. Yeah. You're going to be going to this well-named or whatever type of firm that you are, but everything you're going to be working with a group of people and if those people not a good fit for you or perhaps you're not a good fit for them, It's going to be the difference between night and day.
35:36
It's going to make a big difference. So when do you decide to become this unorthodox, life navigator or is it a catchphrase? And I'll tell you this, There are a lot of people who decide at the very forefront, I'm going to take a very non-traditional approach. I didn't I decided I'm gonna go into business school, I can start earning money and I can start moving toward that definition of success.
36:09
But one of the things that's going to happen is you are going to need some type of experience, you're going to need some experience with whatever you're doing. Of course you can go into something without experience and you'll learn a lot of valuable lessons but eventually you'll get to a point where you ask this hard question the why for right now I want you to think about think about somebody who's either famous think about somebody who in your view are mind has done something great to be an inventor.
36:39
Could be a writer could be you know someone who has is in sports and even if it's somebody that's passed away what was it about him or her that caused them to be quote unquote great in whatever they did. What do you think? What do you think that they asked themselves?
37:05
Why? What is my purpose? What is my intention? Why am I doing this? And I think with the great resignation and the big quit of people were asking themselves the hard question. The why, Why am I doing what I'm doing? Do I want to continue it and that feeds into this creation of a value system?
37:25
So with me I told you all the very beginning My idea of success was what I thought everybody else wanted. You know, you want to get the the title, you want to get the career, you want to make the money and at a certain point in time, all of that was coming in.
37:41
The money was just rolling in the bonuses. That big law. Lawyers make, it's often. The average salary of a person in the US. That's a lot of money and it's it's hard to get away from it. And so I thought initially, that was my value system. And look, I'm not here to say to anybody that if money is important for you.
38:02
Well, fame, any of that stuff that that you're a bad person, not at all. I think for each person it goes back to what is your why? And nobody can judge another person for what. Their why is? Because each person is going to have their own value system. But for me, I realize that my value system was starting to change.
38:19
A value system is like, whatever is in the center. Ie in this case, it would be the Sun. There's other things that go in and out of orbit intact, It needs to stay and it's going to take time for it to form, but it needs to stay in place.
38:39
While everything in your life is shifting and it will. So what became my value system? I realized that as much as I was providing for my kids, that's the the excuse I gave myself for working as much as I did. If there's nothing wrong with hard work, hard work.
38:57
Got me to where I am, But I kept telling myself. Well, I'm providing my kids X Y and Z most expensive thing that I could not. Give them. Who could take a guess time. Time was my most valuable asset and I realized I couldn't give that to them. That was the thing.
39:16
I could not afford. And so for me I realized that at the very for as much as I told myself, otherwise my family played a big role in terms of my life. Now, this is a little bit personal, But with me growing up, my dad was in between two places.
39:33
He was back home, trying to create a life for us. Well, we were here and you would come to visit. And for me for the longest time I was like my dad was not present and it took for me to be a father to realize he was doing the best that he could with the limitations that were in front of him.
39:51
And I realized that in some respects, I'm kind of repeating the same thing, I'm not giving my kids that the one thing that most of them want, which is time. So family was one of my value systems, The other aspect of it was well-being. Now, what do I wellbeing has become often the smoke screen for recruiters.
40:12
We got this well-being program and look a lot of firms are really trying hard. But if you were to ask me, I think a lot of them are behind. And what I mean by well-being is not only mental I'm talking about physical well-being. Exercising was a particular point or a thing that I did when I needed, when I was stressed, I work out for my mental well-being.
40:32
I do a lot of things on the mental well-being side. Even when I was working at the firms, there was a lot of initiatives that I helped to bring forward because at that point in time, it wasn't where it is right now where we started to make strides and well-being, but I realized my physical mental well-being was extremely important.
40:47
And then the last part of my value system was my faith. My faith centered around every other aspect of my life but I realized that there started to be dings. Now, what do I mean by dings When you create a value system? Whatever it may be, you have to monitor it.
41:04
And those are the moments where ding? Ding certain things happen that goes against the value system, and so you try to recalibrate, you try to redo something, whatever it may be. Now like I told you my decision to do what I did. Did not happen overnight. It happened gradually, because every time that there was a ding, I decided I needed to change some aspect of my life, But when you create a value system, you have to pay attention to what is going on where you're at and how is it being impacted impacted?
41:42
But once you've created your value system and you decide hey, I want to try to do things the nontraditional way, What are ways that you can ultimately use your professional skills? For passion projects, The first thing you have to ask yourself, what do you know What value are you bringing in?
42:02
And I guarantee every single one of you in this room and not just saying it, there's something that you're good at something deep down inside, you know, you want to do. I had the notion that idea for the longest time, but what got in my way fear fear of doing something, But you have to ask yourself.
42:22
What do you know, what is your knowledge base? And how can you use that? Four passion projects. Anyone here have a passion project that maybe they've thought about or wanted to do or are doing it right now outside of career outside of your professional? Yes, and something. I'm thinking about kind that I really want to start start a website.
42:48
I really like writing but I don't do a lot of writing in. Yeah, That's great. Anybody else? We have somebody that wants to create a blog to be able to write and I think that's what it really gets at is this this passion for writing that you don't currently have right now?
43:06
Anybody else want to share passion projects and maybe right now you're not sure what a pat. What you're passion project is But there's going to get a point in time where you're going to realize, hey I want to do something and may not necessarily be, I want to leave my job for it.
43:22
Maybe it might that you realize, hey I want to do something with the skill set. That I've learned on a professional setting and take it to another level. It could be related to. For example, most people like, I want to start my own non-profit NGO. Great. You know, could be something related to, I want to write.
43:38
It could be, you know, something related to. I never thought I would have a podcast. But why am I doing it? I need an outlet to talk. That's what it comes out to. I want to be able to talk about stuff, My wife. So she for the longest time wanted to become a journalist, She went to Boulder study journalism then went to Mason for those of you who are familiar with the Northern Virginia area And finally she got the opportunity to interview with ABC7 and she's like, all right, let's get the ballroom and she she's great on camera and I'm biased, of course, because I love her.
44:10
And I think she's beautiful but she was great on camera and she did it for a period of time and she realized I don't want to do this, It's a common theme. I don't want to do this but you she had to be able to try it out to be able to do it.
44:23
She did not find value and just reading scripts. So, reach a point where she's like, I don't know where I want to go. But she, for those of you who know the DC area, there's a building called the Institute of Peace for the longest time, there was something in her that wanted her to.
44:40
She just saw herself being over there So she cold called them the audacity to cold call company and that's exactly what she did. She got on the phone with someone said, hey look, I'm looking to work here. This is what I can provide and she got a job and she did that for a period of time and she loved it.
45:00
But then we had our second child and we were at the crossroads as far as do you stay home, or do you work? And I said, look at the end, it's your decision. What you want to do? This is a choice. You're going to make. I'll give you my two cents, but I can't make that decision for you.
45:12
You have to decide and she interviewed and talked with a lot of people, that's interesting. She spoke with the granddaughter of Walt Disney because she came into the incident piece. And she asked said looking I'm kind of in a dilemma. I'm trying to think about what to do, What do you think?
45:28
And the granddaughter of Walt Disney mind you, I'm not saying that you have to do this. I'm just sharing a story as far as what happened. Their prestige. They have wealth. She said, you know, I did the exact same thing. I took time off to be there with my kid.
45:46
Now for me I'm a male. I don't know what women go through with pregnancy or if that's even you know, and whoever's right or want to do that. But one thing I've realized is as a dad, as a parent dads, are also trying to be there for the kids.
46:01
And we're also faced with a dilemma as far as what do we do with our careers? What do we do with X, Y, and Z opportunities for you to take what you've learned? If you decide, hey, I want to change my trajectory to be able to use it because a lot of you not only at school in your social lives and even when you do start working, you're going to pick up unique skill sets, and those unique still sets can be used to help other segments, but you have to ask yourself, what am I passionate about?
46:28
And you also have to be honest with yourself as far as what knowledge do I need. And we're going to go into the need and spheres of influence. Who's heard of fake it till you make it. And here's why people can see through your bullshit. I worked with one partner and his old idea was fake until you make it.
46:51
But why Why do you need to do that? Every single one of us has knowledge. We have certain skill sets, it may not be everything, but you just need to build your craft practice. Make mistakes, you'll get to where you need to be, but you have to figure out.
47:10
Where is your fit? Find your fit. Where do you belong in all of this and part of that, is this idea of social spheres of influence. Now, my wife after and suit of peace was done, she stayed. What is she end up? Ultimately doing? She's a social media influencer.
47:29
She has a hundred and twenty thousand followers and followers and I'm grateful for them. But the reason why I bring that up is every single one of us has a sphere of influence, your friends, school your work family, even on social media. There are people that perhaps are following you that you don't know about but you have a sphere of influence And it's not about the numbers.
47:58
It's more of how much of an impact can you make into that sphere of influence? Now at the very beginning, I mentioned this idea of shifting perspectives And when I read my bio, I told you that my goal Even in this room if I can shift, one person's perspective and whichever way that's going to benefit them.
48:20
This was all worth it. I did what I needed to do. So you have to figure out what is your social sphere of influence and from there, you start building. But the most important thing is consistency and taking incremental steps because nothing happens. Overnight The last few things because we're getting at the end of our session.
48:42
I want to tell you all is the importance of learning from life lessons. What I mean by that is you have to stop and reflect at every single segment of your life. Even right now, you have to stop and ask yourself what's working for me, what's not what changes do?
48:58
I need to make Build a habit of it because otherwise you're just going to be sleeping through life, you'll be doing things great. You'll be becoming a success in whatever way you define it but you may be sleeping through it. So, you have to stop and ask yourself, what am I doing?
49:14
Whatever it is. Build a value system and let that be your compass. To make decisions. I can tell you. It has not steered me wrong. The best decision that I made was making the changes that I did, which at that point in time was a huge risk. I was no longer going to bring in the money that I had The title was gone.
49:32
The prestige? I'm still barred. I'm Bard in California, Virginia, DC. Texas is pending I'm still a lawyer. I'm just doing it in a different manner that is going to help me with my passion project which at the end of it, I look at myself as an educator. And finally you have to understand everything is temporary.
49:52
We may think that everything is long-lived and it's going to last forever. It's not. I promise you that You're going to have a lot and it's not anything in a bad way that I'm saying, this is just life, is temporary. We're here and one day we're not. But in between those times, you have to understand that with that temporariness comes them sense of power in that sense of power.
50:17
A decision in terms of where you want to go and not necessarily what society is dictating for you. The last thing that I'll leave you guys and I I this quote and it's not here, but this is just in case anybody wants to look at my unlawyerly with me and it's kind of my way to plug myself in, but the one quote that I will leave you guys with and this is a quote that when I was a senior in high school lived a life out to this point, I've got hopefully a long ways to go.
50:48
The one quote that has always stayed with me. Is this? He wants the rebels, the round heads, and the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're now fond of rules. You can quote them disagree with them glorify or vilify them. But the one thing that you can't do is ignore them because they change things, They push the human race forward and while some of us may see them.
51:11
As the crazy, crazy ones.
51:17
A world are the ones who do One perspective at a time. That's been my time. I really do. Appreciate your patience. Hopefully you guys got something out of it. I'll stay here in case anybody has any questions, but that's the end of the challenge to redefine success. And I do hope that most of you, if not all of you find ways to challenge the traditional value, and idea of success,