Talented, Good People Fail

One of the areas I excel in is listening. Yet my ability to focus for lengths of time has been weak, and my desire to please is high. What this creates at times is a wandering state of paying attention while smiling to encourage the speaker in continuing, leading me further and further out of touch.

Talented, good people fail. As my listening skills have led me to great opportunities, my focus and thinking skills have often held me back. What I know today is, while I have created a comfort zone of barrier patterns that hold me back, I have since learned to break down those patterns for one particular reason: to speak and behave with confidence.

Good people fail. And because I vowed in the year 2000 to help those, who like me, want to feel better about themselves at the end of the day, my purposeful focus is to help good, talented people get back on track.

Although I work with many attorneys, attorney or not, here are their similarities: they are highly valued employees, they are succeeding in their positions but clearly could be more effective in them, and/or they are being groomed for positions at the very highest levels. Helping people achieve speaking confidence is the key to helping people work to their highest potential.

Do they need to listen better? Be more aggressive? Talk less? Be more direct? Own up to their mistakes? Business psychologists James Waldroop and Timothy Butler (The 12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back, published 2000) understand these skills as key to developing behavior patterns that work for us. They also know which ones hold us back. These emotional triggers are listed below:

1. Never Feeling Good Enough
2. Seeing the World in Black and White
3. Doing Too Much, Pushing Too Hard
4. Avoiding Conflict at all Cost
5. Running Roughshod over the Opposition
6. Rebel Looking for a Cause
7. Always Swinging for the Fence
8. When Fear is in the Driver's Seat
9. Emotionally Tone Deaf
10. When No Job is Good Enough
11. Lacking a Sense of Boundaries
12. Losing the Path

Although it's more inspiring to focus on our strengths, without focusing on the patterns that hold us back we prohibit our development. If I want to improve in my ability to exercise routinely, I may set a goal to go to the gym 3 times weekly. Yet if the pattern that holds me back is Never Feeling Good Enough, I may start to question why I am even attempting the goal. Soon, I will slide from 3 times to 2 times, and then I will eventually give up.

My efforts at development are a sign of my "good person" status, yet I will fail until I understand AND break down the barrier patterns that hold me back.

What I tell myself (similar to the 12 attitudes above) is what I end up telling the world around me. Break down the behavior patterns and I begin to change my worldview, manage myself, influence others and speak with confidence.

You're Not the Only One

Every time I share the 12 common barrier patterns with new clients, they feel relief. Although they are admitting to a barrier pattern or two that holds them back from being what they really want to be, they immediately realize they aren't abnormal.

There are 12 barrier patterns that hold back good people. For introverts, the most common pattern is Never Feeling Good Enough. Subconsciously, this pattern keeps us from public speaking, from networking well, from asking for the sale and from handling conflict.

Introverts are very thoughtful, reflective people, the kind most people would appreciate taking leadership and presentational roles, or buying something from. The fact that they don't make a practice of the above nerve-wracking patterns leads them to think they cannot do these things. Yet each of the above communication-based activities are quite learnable. The longer we introverts avoid learning to plan, prepare and practice these communication-focused activities, the longer we feel Not Good Enough.

I am so glad I was encouraged to plan, prepare and practice public speaking, and then theatre techniques, and then networking strategies and then business development activities and then conflict management. I now feel Good Enough to help other introverts, like me, break down their communication barriers while feeling purposeful and relieved. Feeling Good Enough is a life-enriching pattern. Ready to join me in learning how to use it?

Challenging Expectations

It's no secret our country's general populice has had its share of controversy over gender equality. From ownership to responsibility, voting rights to income earned, civil debate continues over what is fair, equal and expected.

Whether this controversy originates from the religious platform or has seen its greater influence there, it becomes a test of wills to enter the conversation, conduct ones' self with poise through it and/or conclude with any degree of self-respect as a result.

My work with the attorney community brings this controversy back into view, even today. As I look to support individuals who wish to speak with confidence in the lawyer market, often I am led to supporting women. Is it because women are by nature less secure? I believe the answer is no. Is it because women attorneys face circumstances men may not face? Perhaps.

Interestingly, most of the attorneys who turn to my help are men. However, the issue of female attorneys facing challenges in the profession continue to be brought to my attention - even by males.

Merri, what programs can you offer us at the Supreme Court to support Women Attorneys?

A year ago this question was posed by a gentleman with a keen eye and interest in supporting female attorneys. At the time I was unaware of the challenges they face, the demographics of most firms, let alone I paid little attention to the history of the profession. Since then, I have marvelled at the journey of several FIRST women attorneys.



Bella Mansfield, influenced by both her brother and husband to study law, was the first female in the US to earn a law degree - the same year women were admitted to law school. Belle Mansfield (later, self-fashioned Arabella) passed the Iowa bar exam in 1868 and then, in 1869, she was called to the bar of the state, thus becoming the first woman ever called to practice law in the world; by some definitions, the world's first woman lawyer.

"We feel justified in recommending to the Court that construction which we deem authorized not only by the language of the law itself, but by the demands and necessities of the present time and occasion. Your Committee takes unusual pleasure in recommending the admission of Mrs. Mansfield, not only because she is the first lady who has applied for this authority in the State, but because in her examination she has given the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot qualify for the practice of law; and we feel confident from the intimation of the Court, given on the application made that we speak not only the sentiments of the Court and of your committee, but of the entire membership of the bar, when we say that we heartily welcome Mrs. Mansfield as one of our members, and we most cordially recommend her admission." See this website for more on Bella Mansfield: http://www.duhaime.org/lawmuseum/lawarticle-418/mansfield-belle-18461911.aspx

Although she never used her license, she entered the women's suffragette movement, stayed in academia and encouraged the promotion of women for their intellect as well as their intuition.

Many milestones have been accomplished in the female litigation world today.



"Claudia Gordon, Esq., is the first deaf lawyer who is African American and female, and also the first deaf student to graduate from the American University (AU) Washington College of Law, in Washington, DC, in 2000. At AU, Gordon specialized in disability rights law and policy. Since earning her juris doctorate from AU, Gordon has been active in working to ensure the rights of people with disabilities are respected." Thank you, Jamie Berke, About.com Guide,Updated May 04, 2009

Since many attorneys enter the political environment to become public servants, we also are familiar with Jennifer Grandholm, current governor of Michigan. A few firsts about her include,



She was elected Michigan's first female attorney general in 1998. Granholm was elected governor in 2002 and reelected in 2006 and was once considered a possible Supreme Court nominee.

So if female attorneys are making such progress today, are things getting any easier?

This morning I read an article written by attorney Heather McCloskey in 2006 who shares the challenges women attorneys face. Whether from judges, clients or opposing attorneys, there is still a rite of passage (as would be expected of any professional, let alone female) to be endured.

In my humble summary, it appears that if women are willing to defend their right to own a career, to stand in a firm or courtroom surrounded predominantly by men, to be referred to as a clerk vs. lead counsel and to be expected to wear skirts vs. slacks, they can continue to make progress. Pioneers can be women too, if these women are up to it. If they are, there will be deference to another style of communicating with clients who need it, they will continue to prove logical and reasonable thinking while also being intuitive, and there will be professionals who connect on very influential levels.

To all you female attorneys, speak with confidence. We need you.

Talk Back!

There is a prospect I'd love to get in front of who isn't returning my calls or responding to my emails. Eventhough he invited me to connect with him, he is being unresponsive.

This angers me, for I know his firm could be a huge opportunity for me and I could give him tremendous value, even beyond the few pressing needs he has.

In times like these, I set out to make a phone call, and then I back off. Or should I say, I used to. In the past that voice in my head would say to me, "Merri, he has his own plan. It doesn't include you. Drop it. You aren't what he wants." And I'd back off.

But today, I realize that I have often got in my own way, backing off way too soon. Sometimes the other individual simply had other things on their mind, things unrelated to me. Or maybe I communicated a lack of importance. Or maybe the individual was on vacation. Or maybe there was a temporary fix.

What I know now is, I will persist when it's important. And that means, talking back. Of course I won't talk back to the individual I want to get in front of. But I will talk back to myself. To the voice in my head. I will talk back to say, "No."

"You aren't forcing me to hold back any longer. That keeps me from being useful."

"Just because someone seems busy does not mean I am not important. If an alarm were to sound, they would drop what they are doing. So sound the alarm, if that's the intention."

Today I look at that voice in my head, then turn away while putting up my hand.

"Talk to the hand. I have more important things to do than listen to you."

So You're Havin' a Breakdown

Melissa Etheridge has a lot to say about Breakdowns. Click on the title to check out her actual words if you'd like. Below is the modified version for the purpose of this post:

So you're having a breakdown
So you're losing the fight
So you're having a breakdown
And (you're) driving and crying
Unraveled and flying
(Going) through your breakdown tonight

What I know about breakdowns is their eventual beauty. It's not that I crave them - I'm like the rest of us. I hate them. Those downward spirals that throw us on our backs catapulting us on and on in an endless succession of twists and turns until finally we throw up our hands and say, "Enough! Okay, I give up!"

But they're a thing of beauty. For people like me, they force me to pause. To notice my patterns of behavior and to get in touch with what hurts. They send me to the internal hot button that is difficult to articulate. Yet once I do, once I say outloud that thing within myself which holds me back, suddenly I've moved forward.

The beauty of the breakdown is the breakthrough. When we get there. We must get there. Until we get there, there is no beauty, no lesson learned, no chance of breaking the pattern.

Take that downward spiral, express the pain, then see the beauty. Enough of that already - it's time to move on.