1. They think first, talk later;
2. They focus on depth;
3. They exude calm;
4. They let their fingers do the talking;
5. They embrace solitude.

Now, when I read the article the five points above really resonated with me.  You see, I’m an introvert.  So I got to thinking…can an introvert make a good lawyer?  More specifically, can an introvert make a good trial lawyer?

When I think of a trial lawyer, I think of a character such as Alan Shore from TV’s Boston Legal. Someone who is extremely quick on their feet with wit and sarcasm.  I’m asked occasionally by clients or prospective clients who want to know if I’m going to be a bulldog or super aggressive – someone who stands up and makes a show or screams and shouts around.

Can an introvert effectively represent their clients in trial?  I think so.  My experience has been that I examine a case in depth.  Preparation is of extreme importance.  More extroverted people are able to think on their feet and may not need to prepare as much in advance, but an introvert can get past that with in depth preparation where they plan a response for any conceivable argument or objection.

The third point, “exuding calm” is extremely important for trial lawyers – especially for divorce and family law lawyers because of the extremely personal and emotional nature of the cases we deal with.  By being able to stand back from the case from a non-emotional place and look at it objectively, you can more effectively represent and advise your clients.

I think introverts can make excellent trial lawyers and can effectively represent their clients.  What do you think?

Do you ever stop and consider this question?  Do you ever think about this question at the beginning of the day.  Personally, I know that once I get to work things seem to go crazy.  I usually have several files that I would like to work on, but between meeting with prospects and current clients, answering the questions of my staff, and putting out the fires that flare up during the day, there are days that I go home exhausted and feeling like I did nothing that I set out to in the beginning of the day.

Sound familiar?

So what can you do today to make sure that it is a success?  Pick only one major task that would make your day a success if you complete it.  Write it down.  Now you are focused on what you need to do to make sure that Today is a success. By knowing what your goal is you can make sure that your activities during the day are directed toward completing your target task.

By knowing what your necessary outcome is for the day to be a success, it makes focusing in on what comes up during the day easier to either disregard, delegate out, or put off until you have completed your other work.  You just pass the newly important task through the filter of, “will performing this task help me to complete my goal of completing (blank) today?”  If it will, then do it or make sure it gets done.  If not, delegate the task or put it off until later.

Now, go make today a success!

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

John F. Kennedy

We always find out how prepared we are when the game starts.  When I was playing high school football some weeks things were great and others would be better forgotten.  My junior year our team was coming off one of the longest losing streaks in high school history in South Carolina.  To say our team struggled was an understatement.  However, things had started to turn around with our class.  We were stronger and faster than players had been in the past, but there was still that aura of “losing” that surrounded our team.

About the third week of the season we were preparing for one of the best teams we would face all year.  They were fast, strong and talented.  They played together as a unit and had not lost many games over the past few years.  That week of practice we worked extremely hard.  The came game night.  When someone made a tackle, there were five other guys hovering in position to clean up the mess if the first guy had missed.
Things were clicking for us on offense.  We ended up pulling off the upset and that really gave our team a lot of momentum and would prove to help us get into the playoffs that year.

The success our team was able to achieve didn’t come overnight.  But, in the hard times we kept working.  When we were tired, we kept working.  In the off-season after we lost all of the games the season before, we kept working.  During the summer, when our friends were at the beach, we were at the school working out and conditioning.  We were running routes and studying plays.  We did everything we could to get better.  Had we waited until August to start preparing for the season, we definitely would have been slower, weaker, out-of-shape and not prepared for the season.  It would have been too late to get all the wrinkles worked out.  It would be like waiting on the rain to fix the leak in the roof.

The time to get ready for the challenges that lay ahead is today.  What are you preparing for?  What has God called you to do?

Currently, we are working toward a video projection system for our sanctuary.  I know, I know.  Welcome to the 20th century.  Most likely, this will be out of date by the time we have it installed.  Well, we’re not really on the bleeding edge of technology and we are way behind many other churches in our area technologically speaking, but we are getting there. Which is a whole other issue – do we have to keep up with the Jones’?

One constant challenge for any agent of change is to get people on board and to get people to fully buy-in.  There was a great post on Seth Godin’s blog yesterday about this very topic and one I plan on giving a lot of thought to as we continue to sell the idea of using technology in church to a generation who thinks VCR’s are still the state of the art.  Check out Seth’s post, Probably Not Stupid.

While I get frustrated, Seth’s post made me see that if I used the same frame of reference, I would probably make the same decision.  So now the work begins to try and either change that frame of reference (i.e. change the minds of “stubborn” people) or change my message so it makes more sense within their frame of reference?  Is this true leadership?

I disagree.  Not solely because I am quiet and restrained, and a "nice guy" (and I also feel like I am a good leader), but because I have seen it work, and I have seen the opposite fail miserably and drive people further apart.

One of the great books that I have read is Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.  In it there is a line that says (to paraphrase) "a teaspoon of honey catches more flies than a gallon of bile."  I have found this to be true.  

Proverbs 16: 23 says, "A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction." Proverbs 15: 1 says, "a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

Finally, Proverbs 16 goes on to say in verse 24, "pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." 

When you are nice to someone, they cannot help but be nice back to you.  Especially, when they have started out in the "relationship" with a lot of conflict.   The Bible says if you are nice to someone when they have first been evil to you, it is like heaping burning coals on their heads (Romans 12: 20-21).

In my experience, I have helped clients get what they want and have not had to be the local jerk to get it done.  There are a lot of attorneys who are like this and feel like it helps them in their negotiations.  Like they can somehow strong-arm me into agreeing with them because they yell, use profane language, or otherwise try to intimidate me.  That may work for some people, but when you are dealing with someone who is as sophisticated as you, it never works.  It only detracts from the end result that you desire to obtain. 

I think you go a long way with politeness when being a leader.  When you encourage the people that are following you rather than putting them down.  Now, people are never going to please you 100% of the time, nor are they going to produce your expected result 100% of the time.  And many times they will let you down.  However, I would argue that you aren’t a leader when you feel like you have to put down those who are working for you to make them do their job better.  Sometimes you have to take a hard line, but that does not mean you have to belittle and put down people.

Try leading like a "nice guy" and see how your people react and respond to you.

Reaching people for Jesus is not something that is only done by full-time pastors and evangelists, and not something that only happens during the worship hour on Sunday morning.  The apostle Paul went out to the Synagogue and the Marketplace to reach people for Christ.  That’s right, the marketplace. 

We learn about this in Acts 17: 16-17,  "While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there."

Paul reached the people where he found them and where he found himself.  He also used what they knew to tell them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  What do you mean, Tripp?  He found the alter to the unknown god and used that as his entrance into their religious world view to fill in the gaps about their unknown god, who is God Almighty.  You can translate that to how the church should respond to the culture today to say, the church should be in tune with the culture so we know what matters to the culture, we understand their religious world view and by knowing that, we can present the Gospel to them in a way that they will find engaging and that will have an eternal impact on them.

Keep in mind, we (those of us saved by grace) are living "in" this world but we are not "of" this world.  I am not, in any way, advising that we should sin to reach people for Christ; but, that we should be willing to step outside of our way of seeing and doing things and look into what a lost and dying world sees.  How much more could we accomplish for God if we knew our audience and what type of message they will respond best to?

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it." – Andrew Carnegie 

I read this quote this morning and I totally agree with it!  One thing that great leaders do is empower those around them to get better, do better and succeed.  Simply because you can’t do everything yourself.  You need to train those around you to handle the things that they are gifted in and you handle the things that you are gifted in as the leader.

As an aside, I learned early on when I started running this law firm that I couldn’t do it all by myself.  I always felt like I can do a lot of my own "stuff" because I trust myself and I don’t want to be a burden on anyone else.  But quickly I became the bottleneck.  When I started delegating and empowering my staff, my work load and stress level decreased and our office ran smoothly, efficiently and successfully.

Nehemiah was smarter than they thought. He was wise to know that they did not want to “talk” but rather, they wanted to get him away from the work God called him to so they could destroy him. Knowing he was the visionary, they thought (probably correctly) that if they destroyed Nehemiah, the Jews would freak out and stop working on the wall and rebuilding their city.

Nehemiah prayed to God, “give me strength.” He also illustrated another important leadership trait. He told the messenger to tell Sanballat that he was “doing a great work; I can’t come down.”

I get this picture in my mind of Nehemiah standing on top of a ladder in his work clothes just sweating and working on completing his portion of the wall and overseeing the work of those around him. He understood that there are “haters” that don’t want him to succeed and rather than get caught up in arguing with them about how he was right and they were wrong, he didn’t engage them and just worked on and in the vision God gave him. Nehemiah would not have had to go to meet with Sanballat in order for Sanballat to be successful in his attempt to slow down or stop the completion of the wall. If Nehemiah had just stopped working and come down to draft a long letter or to do something else unproductive, Sanballat’s actions would have been a success (just to a smaller degree).

I hope and pray that I can stay focused on the “great work” that God has given me without getting help up by those people and things that do not want me to succeed. Rather than getting off track just by taking my mind off the work, I hope I can remain focused and avoid the temptation to defend myself and my call to those who want to denigrate it.

What I noticed about Nehemiah during this challenge was that he recognized a problem going on right there in Jerusalem. He was already being threatened from the outside by Sanballat and the other neighboring rulers, but he recognized that he and his people were being attacked from within as well. Completing the wall wouldn’t do the Jews any good if they were perishing at the hands of other Jews because they couldn’t afford to pay their debts.

Another interesting leadership point from this chapter is that Nehemiah, out of fear of the Lord, did not take what he was entitled to from the king as governor of Jerusalem. Rather than getting the forty shekels of silver (a tax from the people) to pay for food, he took the burden off of the people and he provided for the people out of the food that was prepared for him each day. Nehemiah remained focused and passionate on completing the wall, the task that God gave him.

You also see that the people are building around “their” area of the wall. An English Play write and Poet, John Heywood said, “many hands make light work.” This does not mean, however, that many hands make great work. There is a huge difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Timothy Ferriss talks about this in his book, The 4-Hour Work Week. Just because you’re busy doesn’t mean your are doing a good job. And just because you have worked hours on end doesn’t mean that you accomplished anything meaningful.

What did Nehemiah do to ensure great work happened while rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem? He let the people work on the wall around their homes and neighborhoods. The things that were the most important to them. We take pride in our own “stuff” and tend to not worry about everyone else’s stuff or security. This way, not only were there many people working on the wall to get it built quickly, but they were also working effectively producing a great product.