From the category archives:

Great Leadership

Working with Compassion

Share your knowledge, expand your network, act with compassion. Tim Sanders, author of the groundbreaking Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends, says that the best way to build your career or business is to practice generosity-to the extreme. By working this way, we garner trust and respect in others and clients are drawn to authenticity and kindness. Sanders doesn’t talk about love in a fluffy, false way but as a genuine mindset to doing business.

To share your knowledge, you need to build your knowledge. Reading business and personal development books, magazines and blogs gives you a base from which to share.

When you can’t provide a service to a client or colleague, you may be able to share knowledge with them. Being able to say “I can’t help you directly, but you might try reading this article” allows you to provide valuable assistance without being a subject matter expert.

Expanding your network allows you to help others by introducing them to people they might want to work with or who can support their vision.

While “networking” sometimes has a false “people collecting” image, when you think of establishing contacts so you can connect people with others who can provide solutions for their issues, “networking” becomes a altruistic venture.

Again, if you can’t help a client, but know someone who can, you will be considered a resource when people in your target market need help -or know someone who needs help. Becoming a portal of information will make a measureable difference in your practice or other service business.

Finally, can we say enough about living with compassion?

Living and working with compassion makes others feel better … both about you and themselves. We are drawn to those who empower us, cheer us on, or listen during hard times.

Colleagues and clients are no different. Compassion is a leadership trait that perhaps doesn’t draw enough attention. If your professional brand includes compassion, you will naturally draw others to you.

So. Love is a killer application. Add it to your toolbox.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

{ 0 comments }

Happy Super Tuesday!

Good Morning Fellow Lawyers (law students & friends of the legal field)!

If you live in one of the 22 Super Tuesday states, remember to vote today.   Below are a few general rules that you should have in mind as you head to your local polling location.

  • Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.  If you are in line at 8 p.m. , you can vote! 
  • You have the right to cast a provisional ballot even if your name is not listed on the voting rolls. 
  • If a you are at the wrong polling location and have time to get to the correct polling location before polls close at 8:00 p.m., do it!  If you are out of time, you are allowed to vote with a provisional ballot, even if you are at the wrong location.
  • If you declined to select a political party when you registered to vote, you can still vote for Senator Barack Obama (or any other candidate) if you request a Democratic (or Republican - if you are so inclined) ballot from the poll worker. Make sure you mark “Democratic” or “Republican” as relevant in the appropriate space to ensure that your vote is handled appropriately.
  • You have the right to return a completed vote-by-mail ballot to any precinct in your county.

Happy Voting!

obamaflagicon_thumbnail.jpg

Yes We Can!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

{ 0 comments }

From Dream to Reality - Thank You Dr. King

In honor of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, take a little time today to reflect on how you can use your legal training to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

Thanks to Dr. King’s tireless fight for equality and justice for all people, I and all other minorities, women as well as middle and lower income Americans enjoy opportunities that were previously unavailable to us.  

While we have certainly come a long way to making Dr. King’s dream a reality, we still have a long way to go before all Americans have a real opportunity to live and enjoy the realities of Dr. King’s dream.   

Regardless of whether or not you have today day off from your day job - let’s spend some time thinking about how we can make a difference in our community. 

What will you do this year to move your local community, our country and our global community closer to Dr. King’s dream?

Wishing you a wonderful and productive Dr. King Holiday!

 dr-mlk.jpg

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 28, 1963

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

{ 0 comments }