Warren Zevon was dying when he sat down with David Letterman for the last time in 2002. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer just months before. Letterman, visibly moved, asked him if facing death had given him any special wisdom to share. What Zevon said was simple. He said he had always enjoyed himself, but that the enjoyment was more valuable now. He said you are reminded to enjoy every sandwich, every minute of playing with the band, being with the kids, all of it. Not a grand pronouncement. Not a theory of life. Just a reminder to actually…
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AI is not the threat to your career. The threat is the attorney down the street, the consultant across town, or the professional sitting two floors below you who has already figured out how to make AI work for them. That person is not smarter than you. They may or may not have more experience. What they have is a willingness to adapt, and in competitive professions, that willingness is currently worth more than almost anything else on a résumé.

The conversation about AI in professional services has been dominated by fear, but that fear is largely misdirected. The model…
Continue Reading You Won’t Lose Your Job to AI — You’ll Lose It to Someone Who Actually Knows How to Use It

Nobody escapes the curriculum. Life keeps teaching, and it does not care whether you’re ready for the lesson. That is especially true in business, where the stakes are high, the pace is relentless, and the temptation to believe you have figured it out is both understandable and dangerous. The moment you stop staying curious and open, you stop growing. In a competitive environment, standing still is the same as falling behind.

The lessons don’t always arrive in the form you expect or prefer. Sometimes a trusted employee leaves, or a long-standing relationship sours, and you realize in hindsight that the…
Continue Reading Life Is an Insistent and Persistent Teacher

Nobody wakes up and decides to be mediocre. But most people in business, whether they’re fresh out of school or twenty years into their career, settle into a comfortable groove and stop pushing. They meet the minimum. They do what’s asked. They clock in and clock out. And that’s fine, until it isn’t — until someone else who does just a little bit more starts getting the calls, the referrals, and the opportunities.

Avoid this happening to you by being slightly, consistently better than the version of yourself from yesterday. Start with something as simple as showing up early. Even…
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AI is extraordinary. As I wrote not long ago, professionals who refuse to integrate these tools are already falling behind. AI compresses hours of research into minutes, drafts documents that used to take half a day, and surfaces insights that would otherwise stay buried. For lawyers, business owners, and entrepreneurs alike, the efficiency gains are transformational. If you are using AI thoughtfully in your practice or business, you already know this. If you aren’t, the people competing against you do.

But the part that doesn’t get enough airtime, and which should terrify you a little is that when you type…
Continue Reading AI is a Savior and a Devil at the Same Time

Never assume the person you’re speaking with already understands what you want from the conversation or relationship. Dropping a hint or sending a vague email is indirect and unlikely to help you get what you’re looking for. You need to understand that nobody is inside your head. The colleague you casually mentioned a referral opportunity to is not sitting at home thinking about how to help you. If you did not say clearly what you wanted, needed, or were offering, you might as well have said nothing at all.

This plays out constantly in business development and networking, two areas…
Continue Reading Say What You Mean: Don’t Presume Anyone Knows Your Intention

Many professionals wear exhaustion like a badge of honor. They are always available, always grinding, always the last one to leave — figuratively, at least, in an era when the office follows you everywhere on your phone and laptop. Anyone who has been that person can tell you that it is not something to be proud of. It is something to fix. To sustain a long, meaningful careers you can’t be the one who never stops. You need to be the one who understands when stopping is exactly what the work requires.

The people who matter most in your life…
Continue Reading You Owe It to Yourself — and Your Work — to Take a Real Break

There is a moment all professionals know, even though we never talk about it. You are working. You could cut the corner on the project in front of you. You could let the small thing slide. You could tell yourself it doesn’t really matter, because who would ever know? That moment is, in many ways, the most important moment of your professional life because your character is not built in the big, obvious, public moments. It is built in the quiet ones. The ones where the only witness is you.

We spend a lot of time in business worrying about…
Continue Reading Your Reputation Is Just Your Private Choices, Made Public

The energy of a workplace is not an accident. It is a direct reflection of the people in it, and more specifically, the attitudes those people choose to bring through the door every single morning. Science has long confirmed what most of us already know intuitively — emotions spread. When one person on a team leads with enthusiasm, optimism, and genuine warmth, those feelings ripple outward in ways that are measurable. For professionals and businesspeople in high-pressure fields, understanding this dynamic is a competitive advantage.

Think about the colleagues who have had the greatest impact on your career. Chances are,…
Continue Reading Good Vibes Are Contagious — And That’s Actually Good for Business

Arthur Brooks draws a distinction that should make every professional stop and think. There are two fundamentally different categories of problems in the world, and confusing one for the other is one of the most common mistakes professionals make. A complicated problem is hard, but it is ultimately knowable. It can be mapped, modeled, and solved with enough technical skill and computing power. On the other hand, complex problem resists solution by its very nature. It is unpredictable, emergent, and alive in a way that defies any checklist or formula.

For me, as an attorney, complicated problems are the bread…
Continue Reading Complicated vs. Complex: Why Professionals Keep Solving the Wrong Problem

It is March, which means both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments are in full swing. What makes March Madness so compelling, beyond the upsets and buzzer-beaters, is that it is a masterclass in team dynamics played out on a national stage. Every year, highly recruited rosters full of individual talent get sent home early by teams that simply play better together. That is not a coincidence — it is a lesson that translates directly into your business and your professional life. The lesson starts with trust.

No team, in business or in athletics, reaches its potential without trust…
Continue Reading Trust Is the Foundation of Great Teams

Mentoring is one of the most powerful things you can do in your career, and most people aren’t doing it. Not really. They’ll grab coffee with a younger colleague once a quarter, offer a vague word of encouragement, and call it mentoring. That’s not mentoring — that’s being polite. Real mentoring is intentional, consistent, and honest. It requires you to invest time and energy in someone else’s growth without any guaranteed return on your investment and creates a chain of better professionals and better results that extends far beyond the original relationship.

Think about the professionals who shaped your career.
Continue Reading The Power of Mentoring

Let’s get something straight: the people who refuse to adopt new technologies damage their businesses and fall behind. In this moment that technology is artificial intelligence and those not integrating it are already losing. AI may or may not be coming for your job but someone who knows how to use it just might be. Whether you’re a law firm, running a small business, managing a growing enterprise, or a consultant, the time to get comfortable with these tools is now.

The beauty of AI in a business context is not that it replaces your judgment — it’s that it…
Continue Reading Don’t Be a Luddite: Embrace AI in Your Business