Dan Bowling III || How to be a Happy Lawyer

Taylor Chris. I am the executive producer of the Psychology Podcast, and today I'm thrilled to be conducting a guest interview focused on the topic of lawyer well being. Yes, today we are going to stay very practical discuss some actionable strategies that lawyers and really anyone can use to become happier, more resilient, and more fulfilled human beings. It's a topic that's near and dear to my heart and I'm excited to get started. I'm very happy to introduce you to

today's guest, mister Dan Bowling. Dan is a law professor, a duke, a psychology researcher, a lawyer. He is the former senior vice president of the Coca Cola Company. He's a writer and my favorite. He's a self described beach bump. That makes two of us. Yeah, Dan, so happy to have you on the show today. How are you, my friend? I'm great, Taylor. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for coming on. It's such a pleasure. I'd love

to dive right in. You know, Dan, maybe you can start us just by talking a little bit about your life's mission, or i'd save your work as it relates to positive psychology and lawyer well being. Thank you, Taylor. I ended up in this specialty almost I won't say by accident, but through a somewhat circuitous path when I was at Coca Cola. The last job I had there, after working my way up through the ranks, was head of global human Resources for the bottling units about eighty

thousand people worldwide. And I became convinced during that period of time this would been the early part of this century, convinced the traits like optimism, abilities and skills, the collaborative skills, team building skills, positive emotions were the key of performance throughout the company in all jobs. That really wasn't study in business schools even a short ten fifteen years ago.

I was then found out there was a new science in psychology studying these issues and reaching some of the same conclusions that optimism, well being, positivity had wonderful benefits both in one's life and in the workplace. I applied to an Ivy League program, the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program that I think many of your listeners are familiar with, and you are, and you're a proud graduator of Taylor and study this got my master's in positive psychology.

And in the course of that study, being a lawyer, In being someone who had just started teaching in law school, I realized the statistics that lawyers are a fascinating topic for positive psychologists because apparently we're supposedly so unhappy but that still perform well, which doesn't doesn't apply in other

domains of life. So I've spent i suppose my career now diving much deeper into those issues, both doing research on them, working with lawyers, coaching lawyers, teaching lawyers, and I'm delighted to be able to talk about it with your listeners today right on. We're really happy to hear about it, and thank you for sharing yourself with us. Dan. So now before we really dive into lawyer well being.

I think it's probably important to start off with a little bit of information about what I might call like lawyer ill being or lawyer languishing, maybe for the sake of alliteration. You know, I'm so grateful that you're working in this area. Most of my best friends are actually lawyers, and I want them to be happy. It seems like that can be a little tough at times in law though,

even just a quick search, there's some disheartening statistics out there. Lawyers, despite being some of the best paid professionals, and you know, they receive a great deal of admiration and press these for what they do, they seem to suffer disproportionately high levels of unhappiness and mental malady. I have a few stats that I wrote down here that I just found astounding to read off of here, We've got that lawyers suffer from depression at a rate that is three point

six times higher than employed persons. More generally, nineteen percent of lawyers show symptoms of anxiety, twenty one percent of attorneys are problem drinkers, and fifty two percent of practicing lawyers describe themselves as dissatisfied. Disheartening numbers. You know, Dan, Why why it's now? And now you understand what drew me into the deep study of this issue. It's a

real paradox. In most areas of life, wealth, power, challenging work, doing well for others correlates with very high levels of well being and happiness. What is it about lawyers that make us such an outlier? Right? And and as I go deeper in the question, I think we have to ask ourselves how much of that is really true? Uh? Let me let me back up for a minute. Do you you mentioned most of your good friends or lawyers? I mean, I know you, Taylor, You're an outgoing, upbeat guy.

And do you hang are all your friends? Do they meet the descriptive descriptions you just read me? Well, firstly, thank you for the compliments you've just made my day, Okay, And to your point, now, you know, I'd say that most of my lawyer friends are cheery, working, intelligent professionals that at times seem a little stressed because of the workload the many hours that they work. But most of them seem to be more than staying afloat so to speak.

I know a few that seem very way down and are wishing to could detach themselves from their email box for at least a day. But yeah, the numbers seem rather catastrophic and apocalyptic in a way that I don't see represented at least amongst my friend group. That's one of the things that fascinated me and drew me so deeply into the topic again, that most of my friends are lawyers. Many of my relatives are lawyers. I hang out with lawyers. I like lawyers. Lawyers are smart, well educated,

verbal people. They like to talk, they like to have a good time. I'm not dismissing that. I'm not dismissing the real struggle that many lawyers do engage upon. But I think to paint the law with as broad a brush as most of the commentators in the area do. And I do not deny the statistics. I mean, at least the studies you've cited. That is what the majority of studies show about lawyers being fairly socially and emotionally psychologically dysfunctional bunch as a whole. But there are very

very many happy lawyers. What is it that they do different? That's what I try to communicate and study and look at as what choices do certain individuals who go into the law or law school do who thrive in it. I mean, I have students. I have hundreds of students. I've had thousands of students over the eleven years i've taught at Duke. And I get to know my students. I'm an outgoing guy and I like and I like to go go out and see them and socialize with

them out of classes. And I have many, many law students who love law school and do well. I have students who also are very down and get depressed. One way I think I like to think about it is are there a lot of legal professionals and lawyers who meet the definition of that we talked about before, who abuse substances, who are stressed, who are anxious, who have periods of depression. Absolutely? But I would ask are there many other professionals in other fields in the modern Western

world who don't that? Are are there any that are exempt from these issues? I don't think so. So I hear that. I think I think lawyers. Lawyers are real people too, And if we looked at a Bell curve distribution, I think the law all your well being happiness distribution or lack thereof, is somewhat normalized even when compared with other highly educated professions with high performance standards throughout the

Western world. Fair points. She's absolutely yeah. I'd be curious and I'd love to really move into some some great strategies that the audience, you know, like tomorrow kind of thing to explore it. Well. But what is it about being a lawyer in particular that you think might cause some of these mental woes? Here, here's what are the usual culprits, and we can we can break them into two.

Uh A is the nature of the work and the way the work is structured the business of law uh B. And I this is a bit more controversial in my opinion, is the psychological makeup what traw do certain types you know. Seligment theore Martin Seligman uh the father of positive psychology, theorizes that pessimists are drawn to law in person. In persons with a pessimistic life outlook, I'm sure your listeners know tend to have a higher risk of depression and anxiety later in life. So let me talk a little

bit about the business of law. And I think these are the more valid considerations. Law is. People are attracted the law originally almost is more of an art as a profession. They see themselves crafting, working and crafting novel theories to apply to different sets of facts, but once one. The practice of law today is a grind. One's time, for the most part, is kept in billable hours. Yes, the billable hour is a that's a dreaded way to live anybody's life. That's what I like about the beach

bump part of my life. There are no billable hours on the beach, and they're tremendous demands on lawyers. I mean, typically for most of my students end up going for big law firms in the big cities coastal cities. Easily twenty twenty three hundred and twenty four one hundred hours a year are expected them in billable hours. That doesn't mean checking your email, that doesn't mean going to lunch or taking a walk in the park. It means, you know,

billable work. This is up about This is up almost fifty percent since I since I entered the profession thirty some years ago. So just the grind just really gets to people. A lot of lawyers too, who are graduating today. Most lawyers, those people of your generation look for a lot more than life than just sitting in an office grinding away. They're just going home to a non working spouse. I mean, life has changed. People want people want more balance in their life, and the law really isn't a

place that's figured out how to offer that. I think business has a lot better, I mean a lot more. The corporate world has become the working world in general, to become much more flexible. Jobs are more portable, works more portable. Law is a quarter century behind these sort of developments, and that's one of the those are some of the business reasons. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean surveys from gallop or showing that the millennial generation, our value system

is shifted so heavily. There's almost a chasm between us and generations prior in terms of our desires for work life balance and digital nomadgery has become the desired move for a lot of people my age. It's actually what I'm doing right now. Correct, Very good, very good. Well, So that's really insightful, and I appreciate hearing about that.

I had interviewed a few of my friends who are lawyers, and that's a lot of what I was hearing was just that they had to be there for so many hours that they were a little bit of a slave to the idea of the billable hour, and the way that the system is structured essentially isn't something that you can fight at this point. I don't know many lawyers who are digital nomads or who get to set their

own hours or decide to you know, knock off. Really it's usually that you're you're stuck there doing your work kind of thing. Well, you're stuck there if you want to, you know, move, get the brass ring in law, you know, being a partner in a law firm, or being able to go out and make your own law firm and own clients. Many people do opt out for a healthier lifestyle where and do become more digital, digitally nomadic. I know some here in Durham who are part time faculty

who are also parts of law firm. But to achieve the highest wrongs of the laws, it's still show up and grind away. So I see that as all speaking too. Point one out of the two that you were making. Yes, yes, we could talk to me about some of the psychological makeup points. Uh huh uh. And here's I differ from many of my colleagues in this regard, and have had healthy debates with some who work in the law your

unhappiness industry. Yes, if there, if there is one first fall, my mentor and friend, your friend, Martin Seligman, I disagree with him. I do not think pessimists are drawn to go to law school. That is a common misconception based on a one study done years ago at one law school involving one small subset of students. My research at three or four different law schools actually showed that persons entering and plying law school have higher levels of hope

and optimism than a generally educated US population. So, first of all, I do not think pessimists are drawn to law b I don't think pessimism is taught in law school or law. Yes. Are we trained to look for the worst thing that can happen? Yes? Does a good lawyer sit there? And if you ever have to talk to a lawyer, if a good lawyer isn't going to tell you, Taylor that sorry, your case is hopeless, there's

nothing we do, You'll probably get the electric chair. And you said, look, it was just an open container, what what do you mean? No, we I think lawyers tend to be more prudent and should be prudent. But that's not the same thing as pessimists. I'm not sold based on my research and other research I've read that there's something in that draws some psychological deficiency that draws people

to law. I don't think that's the case. I think again, when we talk about lawyers, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people. We're talking about a representative sample of

every type you can imagine in the human race. So that's fascinating for So, I actually gave a talk for the American Bar Association Continued Learning at the CLEE right not too long, friend, Martin Nisen, and oh yeah, and the topic that I chose was lawyer pessimism and uh and just everything i'd seen online, really, I'm not sure

I saw a printing. Opinion was that if not the lawyers are pessimists and so they're drawn to law, then maybe law school inculcates the sort of pessimistic worldview by trying to teach lawyers to be quote unquote prudent, you know what with clients coming in and seeing your job to be on the lookout for potential threats on the horizon. It's helpful actually to think, well, everything's gonna go wrong in the worst possible way, and it's never going to

get that event right. So in that sense, my understanding was that law school maybe trains people to be pessimistic because it's helpful in producing effective lawyers. I think you're onto something there, but let me kind of phrase it a little, let me frame it a little differently for you. Law school, particularly the first year model of law school.

I don't think we train students to become pessimistic, but I do think if you could have a laboratory for inducing learned helplessness in a population, the first year of law school is perfect learned. Sorry, it is very rough though, my friends when they say it in law school, we're

having a pretty rough time. It's perfect. It's really if we set out as psychologists, you and your listeners to design something that's going to depress a population, first year law school model would be a pretty a proxy for that. There's no feedback other than negative feedback in class, I mean the pressure to be at the top students or ranked top to bottom. There's virtually no collaboration. Everyone's thrown together at each other another one's success is another one's failing.

There are no grades. There are no grades until after the semester's over. You get one grade in each course. So you could be the next Supreme Court You could be a Supreme Court justice in the future, or a block out, but you won't don't really know. This creates a sense of hopelessness, helplessness among many first year law students who I can see walking around the hallways in January and February. It's kind of said, very very different looks on faces than there were in August at the

beginning of school. To the extent I think you said earlier, are we going to change big law? You know the of our podcast here, I don't. I don't think so. I don't think we're going to blow up the first year model totally either, although more people in my profession, more people are talking about it. Uh. You know, business schools, medical schools have really their models have become much more I think humane over the years. Again, I told I

told my students just last week. I think if we look at the institutions of law and compare them to business and other professors and the professions, again, I think we are always about a couple of decades behind, but I'm optimistic that there there will be some changes there, some lawyer optimism. Right on, Oh, you've made me hundred, it's lunchtime on these coasts. That sounded great. Yeah, no, no, I think I'm going to sign up for Blue Apron.

So we were talking about lawyer optimism and pessimism, basically covering some of the issues facing lawyers or why they might. Let me say one thing when I talk about my focus is on, say, the life above zero for lawyers, and what do happier lawyers and lawyers reporting well being do differently, and how I am not quick to embrace the notion that lawyers are as a group far more depressed anxious than others similarly situated educated professionals in the

year twenty seventeen in the Western democracies. There's a lot of stress in the world these days. That does not discount the important work being done with those lawyers who are stressed and anxious, and there are many, and yet we have suicide has been an issue in our profession like others. There are many lawyers out there who are suffering and depressed. And so I'm not trying to be

in any way dismissive of those. I mean, it's very easy for me to tell you and your listeners that well being surveys I've done on students over the years using the satisfaction with life scale shows students to basically be roughly around the same satisfaction with life scores around twenty four to twenty five. Is that US population, But there are those and for those at the bottom side of the scale, I think we have to have tremendous

empathy and work with those individuals. And I do think by at least focusing on the issue, even if it's overstated a little bit, whether it is or is, it has made the bar associations and institutions and legal institutions more sensitive and more able to react and deal with these things. So it's a good thing. I'm very happy to hear that. Yeah. Absolutely, it's a wonderful reframe of

the situation. You know, I feel like it's almost the socially acceptable punchline to say that, like lawyers are just depressed anxious alcoholics. It's it's not that simple, you know. That's that's upsetting to have the entire people distilled down to a caricature. Yeah, right, well, so, Dan, I'm loving our conversation. Got it. So, you know, we've covered a few of the reasons why there may be like a disproportionate level of unhappiness or unhealthy behaviors and the legal population.

Let's turn and get super positive psychology on it. Yeah, So, what might be some practical like try this out tomorrow sort of strategies that you would recommend or that you've seen work with your students to help lawyers. You know, what would we say, maybe become more mindful or use their character strengths, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I think you've hit on. You've answered the question, let's apply positive

psychology to lawyers in the legal population. Earlier this week I was asked to give a talk to the student body here at Duke as a whole on this very issue. It was March twenty eighth was Lawyer Mental Health Day. This was last last week, and the point I tried to make is that what things do. We're not going to change big law here in the talk I gave or us on this podcast during the next few days or any ABA committee isn't going to change the way big law firms were, aren't going to aren't going to

change first year model at law school today. A person who becomes a lawyer, you're going to have to deal with stress, anxiety, tough clients, and all the external factors that make can make law. You know, it's a tough it's a tough way to way to make a living. I get it. It's hard. But possibly lawyers can do something to change themselves, do something change themselves within that environment. And I like to think about it in terms of six or seven choices that person's entering the law or

practicing law can make. And I think these work for everybody, not just just lawyers. And first of all, one has to understand and while I'm talking about choices, I'm not talking about those big capital see choices like do I get married, do I move? Do I take this job or that job? Do I go back to graduate school or not. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about little, everyday choices we make by the hour, almost maybe even more.

I'm talking about small cognitive and behavioral strategies that all of us can adopt on an ongoing basis. Because truth be known, I think is the work of Sonya Lubmersky and others have shown you can choose a chunk of your own happiness. I mean a lot of happiness is if you think of a cake. You know a lot of people's propensity to well being is baked into their

genetic cake, I mean biology. Does you know there are people who just are born with a little bit more springing their steps, so to speak, and there are other people who life seems a little more difficult as that goes on. But so some of this is just genetic, but we can affect at least a certain percentage of it. Some of it is life circumstances. But most people who study it surprisingly say what happens to you in life does not control your happiness or well being in life

over time. You know that, you've heard of studies how lot of rewinners. You know, a couple of years later, many are broke or miserable. Again, there are there's plenty of evidence that people who suffer travere trauma in their lives go on to leave flourishing and fulfilled and happy lives. There's you know, there is hope in life even after bad things happening. So again, what choices are made in daily strategies? Do people do and one is choosing optimism,

choosing an optimistic approach to life. In life situations, lots of good things attach themselves to optimism. Optimism is not the same thing as well being, but they're pretty close. Cousins. People do better generally. Optimistic people do better at work in life, in marriage, in relationships, getting things done in leadership. But I'm not talking about just thinking everything is going to be for the best, like the fictional character Pollyanna,

everything will always turn out great. What I'm talking about and when people in positive psychology talk about optimistic optimism, we're talking about a realistic, fact based assessment of the future, but with a positive bias. A realistic fact based assessment of the future, but with a positive bias. You or I have no idea what the future holds one minute from now, a day from now, a week from now, how things are going to turn out, how a job is going to work out, how a challenge is going

to resolve itself. Why not rather than convincing yourself that it's going to turn out poorly, like me, like like, which is instinctive for a lot of people that be realistic assess it but have a positive bias. If you have a choice. We only have fuzzy knowledge of the future. You might as well choose a positive approach. And this would sound of like an empty suggestion, choosing optim miss if we didn't know that optimism can be learned. That's a very new development, new in the sense of a

quarter century in psychology. But optimism, to us, it's not easy, but optimistic thinking patterns and habits can be learned. And one of them is what I've just suggested. Yeah, absolutely, I mean just this in and of itself has altered my life for the better drastically. Going going into the MAP program, we end up reading a book by doctor Martin Seligman called Learning Optimism, and it was an awakening for me where I came to have knowledge of what

we call the negativity bias. You know, humans that survived to this point because our ancestors were the kinds of animals to think that that rustling in the bushes behind you was a saber tooth tiger instead of like instead of like a Pomeranian or something like that. So that that thinking that things are probably going to hurt you or harmful or scary, it helps keeps us alive. At least it did that in our environment that was very different from the one we're in now, And the issue

is that that negativity bias in this modern world. It's not a saber tooth tiger anymore. It's my boss telling me I did a crappy job, and now I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job, and now I'm sorry to think that I suck and I'll never find another job, And you know, stopping and just realizing I was having these kinds of catastrophic thoughts and questioning their validity, just being like, that's not true, you know, and why am I thinking so negatively and then reconditioning my thought patterns

towards a more optimistic explanatory style and the way that you've described as I mean, it's heads and tails. I feel like a different person. Amazing, It's it's it really works. And you just gave perfect examples of that and Learned Optimism a book you mentioned, Taylor, if your listeners want to read one book on well being to really get at the bottom bottom of it, Learned loptimm from Seligman is one to read that. Along with my academic papers, I need the hints and downloads for my I'll go

like everything after this. If you go like that, Okay, thank thank you, But you know you and Taylor, you you perfectly set me up for the second point choice I think lawyers make, and that's choicing, choosing to keep perspective, and the best way to keep perspective on one's life is exactly what you set shutting up that negative voice in your head. You know what I'm talking about, the negative voice of your head telling your failure. You're fraud.

You don't know what you're talking about. Uh this, nobody's listening to this. Back to evolution again. Uh, this is another carryover of the monster outside the door that's baked into our genes, our brain, our sub are conscious, our heads always telling this danger, danger, watch out, there's problems here. Things aren't going to work for you. Think of your own thought. We're constantly there's a dialogue running on in

our head. And I tell you what, if there was some crazy radio announcers who parked in your head, or some cable news host of the opposite political party you're in who is just blabbing away NonStop in your head, you'd probably turn off the chant, turn the channel right or on your head five. Yeah, but we don't do that to ourselves. And I tell lawyers, you know, lawyers, you know lost You're trained to cross examine, cross examine your internal voice. Ask them is there evidence for that?

You say, my boss is matter, I'm going to screw up? Really, what's the evidence? Do you have a foundation for that? Cross examine that negative voice in your head. Other ways to practice, you know, choices lawyers make in keeping perspective, Many engage in mindfulness techniques. I'm not going to spend much time on that, not being an expert, but I know you many of as a way to keep perspective and avoiding rumination. Live life through the front windshield, not

the rear view mirror. Sounds kind of hockey, but that's how I really try to live my life. Focus on the future, not try to relive or refight battles that are already called a third choice. I think happy people make and happy lawyers makes, and you've alluded to it earlier. Just learning how to use one's strengths. What are your strengths? How do you use them? At work? Gravitate, particularly for lawyers, but any workers. Gravitate towards things that you're good at.

And like doing. You're going to be at your best when you're using strengths, not constantly trying to fix problems with yourself if I tried to. I mean, there's a lot of stuff I can't do. I'm just not good at I don't like it doing spreadsheets, and I shouldn't go out and you know, become an investment banker stage. But I know my limitations and learning one's own limitations and focusing on one's strength is a choice people may

absolutely I love that. You know, decades of research from DC and Ryan, some very well known researchers, they've suggested that humans have three fundamental psychological needs, and one of them is competence is just affect and feeling like we're good at what we do, that we can change the world a will, and that we're powerful creatures in our universe,

so to speak. And I think character strengths has got to be one of the best ways to feel like you're you're living your best possible life, like you're showing up as your best possible self again. I do a lot of wonderful work with character strengths with some of my coaching clients. For those of you out there, who would be interested in exploring your own character strengths. You can go to the via I'll try. I don't know the website, so basically Google via thank you. Yeah, so

it's via dog. There's a survey on there that you can and it'll tell you what some of your top strengths are. It's just it's a lot of fun to work around these things, say right. You can also find a copy of that survey at authentic happiness dot com, which is run through the up University of Pennsylvania computers where I do some work. So it's free and it's academically validated. It's it's great stuff. Yeah, it's interesting. You

mentioned competence and self determination theory. Lawrence Krieger, a professor and researcher at Florida State University, about a year ago published to me, I think the most comprehensive and anyone

can find online. Kreeger k R E I E G E R A survey a lawyer's and well being and what factors went into lawyers supporting higher levels of well being fifteen years into the job, and the number ones were around autonomy and competence, you know, self determination where the lawyers reporting highest levels loss of satisfaction were Uh, it was competence at doing one's job who even probably through accident, fell into their strengths. That is wonderful. I

did not know about that. I've started working a little bit with some of my lawyer friends actually, and I'm doing as much research as I can in the area that that's hugely illuminating. I appreciate that, Dan, you are a repository of useful knowledge. Well, I think that's what they pay us for here academy. At least, at least have a little work acknowledge in the area. Get another choice. And this is everybody, This is true everywhere. But just

stay active, keep moving again. Back to our biology. This is one place where our biology is good. We can make biology work with us and evolution work for us. Is that we're programmed for movement and play. We're programmed to play. I think that that is an issue in law, and particularly a culture of law people. You walk down the faculty hallway here, it's quiet in the ears, these doors closed, and people sitting with two or three screens on their desks and piles of paper, and we're all

grinding away. And you know, I'd get up and walk around a lot. Everybody you know must think I'm some sort of crazy person. But inactivity kills. It kills the body, It kills the mind, that kills the spirit. Find waste, find ways to keep moving. Yeah, trial lawyers, trial lawyers, people who try a bunch of cases. My brothers one. This is speculation, but tend to I think in general, tend to report some more higher levels happiness something than just office lawyers. And I just wonder how much of

it is. You're getting your moving around, you're changing locations, you're going from courtroom to courtroom, you're standing up here on your feet, work under incredible stress. But many or it's fairly happy people. I mean, i'd imagine a fair amount. It's probably my top one or two. Well being sort of closely guarded habits on a daily basis is to get to the gym. I start to slide a little deer otherwise, and it makes sense to you know, we're monkeys.

We need to swing from trees. Precisely, we did not. We did not descend from cows grazing in a pastor. I love that. A couple of more, you know, and this is close to activity. But again, the more research more data. The more I look at populations and thousands of people over a long period of time. Humor, you know, people choosing to to laugh and play and having a sense of humor. I mean, I'm enjoying this conversation. I think, I hope you are. I hope your listeners are. But

we're laughing. This is a serious topic that we're able to deal it with humor. Humors of virtue. Humor has been considered a virtue for thousands of years because and it's the way it can kind of tune up a group, like an orchestra tuns It creates bond it creates positive endorphins. Choosing to levity and laughing. You don't have to tell jokes if you don't know how to tell a joke, but just enjoy life while we're here. That's a wonderful recommendation.

I love it. So it's funny. I guess like humans are really one of the only animals that laugh. It'stop to think about it. I've never seen my Pomeranians start laughing. Well,

they wag their tail. They have their own ways, so but quickly choosing relationships, you know, the late Chris Peterson, the Great great personality psychologist and a person who I had the privilege to teach with one year in the Masters in Positive Psychology program at Penn would give talks around the world on happiness research, and invariably he would

tell the story. Invariably a hand would go up say, well, what is the one key to happiness after this complex technical academic presentation, And his answer always was other people matter. Other people matter. It's relationships. Forming relationships with others is an absolute strategy that is very important. I try to talk to my law students about and lawyers I coach with, which is sometimes tough because law can be a zero

sum game. I win, you lose. I mean, that's the way, as I said, the grading system works in the first year. That's the way much work in law does. So forming relationships and keeping relationship are extremely, extremely important. I know it to be one of the top predictors of overall well being. Or relationships are an essential aspect of the good life and a great strategy for someone who's trying

to become a happier, healthier, more productive human being. Right right right, And and my final tip, and this is what I could I used to be kind of live about I almost hesitate when I discuss it with people.

But it's choosing to look for meaning. There's a lot of evidence on Nate, particularly in the workplace, that persons who report their work as a calling are happier or higher levels of life satisfaction than those who just see it's a grind or a job and that and it, And it makes sense that it would be that way.

I'm always hesitant to tell anyone, uh, still trying to make their way in the world, still trying to just find a job sometimes or a career, say oh, by the way, you need to go do this, this and this, and by the way, when you do find a job, make sure it's calling, or else you're going to be miserable. Right, that's a lot or make sure it's a lot of pressure. I mean, if what I I'm not one of these graduations speakers that talks about you go find a life

of meaning. They most graduating students want to just be able to find you know, how to get an apartment or get paid, rather than meaning. But all I can suggest on that is be aware of finding it meaning in life, think about meaning in life, continued looking for it. It's a lifelong journey. I've been in the workplace for over thirty years, work in academic space, and is my

life meaningful? I think so, And I think this is a calling by a little I don't know if that's really for me to say, but I am aware that having a sense of meaning and a calling and doing things where wand is satisfying something more than just a need for a paycheck correlates very strongly with happiness and

well being for lawyers and across all lives. Absolutely. I found that it's really hard to get some people to discuss meeting in a way so it feels a little high fludancer or like new age good puppy cock or something like that. Yeah, but really cool study from the Worton professor Adam Grant, who's also, i mean works pretty closely with the MAP program. Yep, jeez, I don't remember any of the details, but I'm hoping I won't butcher this.

He conducted an experiment with telemarketers and it was the job of these telemarketers to cold call people and try and get donations to send kids to college. And so what he did was he brought some of those kids that got into college to speak to the telemarketers that help them go to school. Just for five minutes, like these people looked at each other in the eye, and these telemarketers got to see the positive difference they were making to these children. I mean, I mean, it's a

hugely meaningful experience. But aside from an experience of meaning, they also tracking the numbers and donations they were getting. Found that the group of telemarketers that spoke to these children, their average donations per week went up by like three hundred dollars or something like that. It was, yeah, it was substantial. I think they were only getting maybe like one eighty or two hundred dollars a week, so to

go to like five hundred is it's It's awesome. It's it's basically a performance enhancer even in the workplace and raising the bottom line, so you know, it doesn't need to be that financial success and prestige are divorced entirely from like of well being. And it's a really sort of a hardening message I think from that absolutely absolutely, and for people who are also want to dive deeper into kind of these existential topics and look more into meaning.

We had an episode with Emily Esfahani Smith, who was my advisor actually on the capstone in the MAP program. I adore her. She's so great. A new book called The of Meaning and UH read it right, dud read it's wonderful book. Wonderful book. And one more episode I think it is actually been released last week with Roy Baumeister, who's a very social psychologist and a really cool guy and a guy who a brilliant man and a guy who likes to laugh is life. Yes, really, he's a

lot of fun. I think that guy great, wonderful. Wow, I'm one thing before we close, uh, And I hesitate to start throwing a few names out there, but uh, because I'll forget a lot. But there are several lawyers who are also MAP graduates who are called to this field of study and work, and I think we all work come at it slightly differently, but but they're doing

just great things. The ones. Anne Bradford who was was a part powerful UH partner in a global law firm and after MAP UH resigned and has devoted her life to study of lawyers and well being and actually leads an ABA committee that I'm a member of on lawyers and well being. So she's doing great work and maybe helping change bar standards to encourage more well being. You mentioned Martha Paula Davis Lack is a consultant and a speaker again a lawyer, and she works with lawyers and burnout.

Dave Sharon is another one who works with lawyers. Sean Doyle, I could keep going, Jan Stanley, there's something about in the water map that makes those of us who are lawyers go out and decide to understand more about this and work with lawyers. That's wonderful. It's empowering to have all of you spearheading these great initiatives. It's I'm laughing right now just because I had one more question or

two more than I want to ask really quickly. And it was Chelsea's part of surprise that I had reached out to Anne Bradford and to Martha Knudsen and ask them if they wanted to be a source for some questions for our boy Dan on air. Yeah. Yeah, So you know, two of our assistant instructors from the Map program lawyers and wonderful people looking to improve lawyer well being. I have two questions here, if you've got time for it, sure, if I can answer them. They're very smart people, truly,

very very hard Okay, here we go. If someone was trying to decide whether to go to law school, what advice would you give? Is it still a good idea as for post law school? Is it possible to be happy in big firms or should graduates avoid them? Any advice on what to ask on interviews? Is what it all says. That's a lot. Maybe we can that's a multi harder. Was that from both of them? Yeah? These are all from both of them. Yeah, and thank you Martha, and I know you you delighted in getting down here.

So but they were both students of mine and the MAP program or listened. I love them both well. For call, I'd answered this if asking to go to law school, I get asked that a lot. I actually have a daughter working in New York. I love very much, who brilliant person who's sometimes asked me the same questions. And I think the answer is when I'm asked that, I said, well, why do you want to be a lawyer? Why do

you want to go to law school? I mean, is it something to do for three years that you can borrow a lot of money and don't have to worry about another job. Is it? Are you going? And I'm talking about the people in general, I will ask this, are you doing it just because you think you're going to make a lot of money? Are you doing it just because you have no other idea what you're going to do with your law with your English degree? Or do you really kind of want to be a lawyer

even if you can't articulate that what that is. That's how I felt coming out of college. I really wanted to be a lawyer. Again, what I knew of lawyers. I grew up in the civil rights there and in Mississippi, and what I knew of lawyers is what i'd see on TV or reading books, are and shows about putting the klan behind bars, you know, good lawyers. And that

was very inspiring to me. So I had some If someone wants to be a lawyer and really be in position to afect lives, corporations, cases and make a difference, I say go to law school by all means. If it is a vague reason, don't do it. It's too hard, to expensive, too many years out of your life. As to the question, can happiness exist in big firms? Sure, but you're going to have to find it on your own. We're having a reunion here at the law school. Is not my class this weekend, so I'll go to some

of the reunion activities. I'll see several students who are just two or three years out that I've been in some contact with, and they're loving practicing law and big firms. They're loving it. I have others who've called me and have left after six months, just absolutely miserable. So it depends on getting in the right situation, getting a situation where you can align your strengths with your work. It is possible. I would would I do it where I

graduating today? I doubt it very seriously, and I wouldn't because I think I know myself well at this time. As for big firm, but it is certainly possible in a big firm to be happy. But again, know yourself, know yourself. I would say my students are about mixed. I'd say it's a mixed back on the students I'm advising. And what was the third part of their question? I think it was actually an eight part question. Yes, yes, it says any advice on what to ask during interviews?

And I'm actually not totally sure what that means. Maybe I copied and pasted and because something offered does that have significance to someone in a legal background? But ask about strengths. What are your strengths? What are you most like doing? Where do you find flow? When do you feel yourself? What is your hobby? I mean, I well throughout my career, not just for law, but for any job. I want to know a lot about the person. What

makes the person tick. I wasn't the type one to ask them to explain their theory on receivership in loan doctum. You know, during during interview, a lot of interviewers will probably most what but I would ask you know, particularly if you're thinking about it from a positive syche standpoint, at wellbeing standpoint, get to know the person. Ask about strengths. Great, I see how that ties all the way back into our beginning of our conversation and how you got interested

in how traits like optimism, character strengths fuel productivity. Yep, you know. I have to thank you a thousand times for your time and your expertise and just your your jovial temperaments, dance or as a pleasure chat with you. Do you is there anything that you wanted to promote, Taylor, I would love to get to know some of your listeners today. You can find me on Facebook. That's Dan Bowling. There's another Dan Bowling, far younger and more handsome, who

works at Amazon. And that's my son. That's not me, but Dan Bowling on Facebook sent me for a request, and I'll fringe you and love to post some of my articles there. And also on Twitter's an easy one. I post things there. It's at Bowling Dan Capital, b ow L I N G Capital d A N And finally on LinkedIn again Daniel Bowling or Daniel Bowling the third. I'm pretty easy to find and I would love to again get to know some of your listeners. Thanks for myself,

I guess you know. I just moved to Los Angeles, so I'm setting up my private positive psychology coaching and consulting business. If you have any interest in the latest science of how to be healthier, wealthier, and more fulfilled, please reach out to me. You can go to my website Taylor christ dot com. My last name is k R. E I S. S. Or you can find me on Facebook do some writing, I do some talks around the area. And pretty cool. I you know, everyone listening, please enjoy

your day er round. Thank you, Tyler, thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barrek Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought per booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com