The Introverted Lawyer

CHAPTER 7 Step 3: Mental Action

In Step 1, we listened to the exact language of the messages playing in our heads when confronted with an interpersonal interaction in the classroom, law office, or courtroom, and transcribed the words:

“Hmmm, every time I’m prepping for Torts class, I hear, ‘You’ll never speak as smoothly as that college debate team guy who sits in the front row.’”
“When I think about having to negotiate that settlement agreement, I hear, ‘No one cares what you think.’”
“As I don my business suit to go to court, I hear, ‘You look fake.’”
“When I try to network but feel self-conscious, I hear, ‘Grow a thicker skin.’”

We observed, we recorded, we noted. We assessed the original sources of these messages and hopefully realized that the historical messengers no longer have any relevance to, or power over, our lawyer personas. Now, it’s time to delete and expunge those messages and draft new positive mental prompts for the future. We will use these freshly crafted taglines as foils, to interrupt the automatic spin cycle that launches at the onset of an uncomfortable or nerve-wracking law-related interaction.

Dr. Breggin reminds us that we have a “personal right to reject communications and actions that threaten or offend [us].”³⁴⁹ Many of us have been tolerating the annoying static of our destructive mental soundtracks for years. Drs. Markway, Carmin, et al. suggest that “[t]o get rid of self-defeating thoughts … [we] must learn to replace them with more adaptive and constructive thoughts, called coping statements.”³⁵⁰ Instead of harmful rebukes like, “I’m such a wimp; I can’t do this; I’ll never cut it as a lawyer,” Drs. Markway, Carmin, et al. encourage us to recast those jibes into “realistic” and “brief and simple” affirmations, using formulas like:³⁵¹

“Most people will accept it if _________________. I can cope with disapproval. It’s not that bad.” ³⁵²

Using this template, here are a few law-related taglines:

“Most professors will accept it if I stumble over a word or phrase in explaining a rule from a case. I can cope with a quizzical look. It’s not that bad.”

“Most of my fellow law students will accept it if I don’t know the answer to a confusing Socratic question. I can cope with taking a few minutes to sort out my thoughts. It’s not that bad.”

“Most of my law office colleagues will accept it if I need time in a meeting to settle in before chiming in with ideas. I can cope with being the last one to speak. It’s not that bad.”

“Most judges will accept it if my face turns red when I deliver my oral argument. I can cope with knowing it’s outwardly obvious that I’m nervous. It’s not that bad.”

Drs. Markway, Carmin, et al. recommend crafting new “coping statements” to disrupt the “maladaptive thoughts,”³⁵³ and writing out a “coping card”³⁵⁴ if a physical tangible reminder is necessary to halt the negative loop. Similarly, Hilliard encourages anxious speakers to “listen to the negative messages that you tend to give yourself, and then … invent an antidote, a completely opposite message.”³⁵⁵ Dr. Laney concurs: “[R]ealize there is negative talk going on in your head … [P]ictur[e] the ‘judge’ who is criticizing you. First tell him or her to ‘put a sock in it.’ Next, switch channels to thoughts of something pleasant … [R]eplace that critical voice with a kinder, gentler, more supportive one: ‘You’re doing fine.’”³⁵⁶ When that disparaging internal bobblehead chimes in with a totally unworkable “you can’t do this,” we must perform the mental version of the fire safety rule, “stop, drop, and roll,” and say, “wait a minute, I can actually do this.” The voice might press on: “But what if it doesn’t go well?” Well, but what if it does?

In the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, U.S. gymnast Laurie Hernandez whispered to herself, before mounting the balance beam, “I got this.”³⁵⁷ And she did.

The first year I taught legal writing at New York Law School, I planned an inaugural series of Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety (OPSA) workshops for students experiencing apprehension toward the spring oral argument assignment, the culmination of our year-long 1L legal writing course. Meanwhile, as part of my own professional development, I had volunteered to present a draft law review article at a Tuesday Faculty Workshop—a somewhat daunting venue in which law professors (mostly tenured or tenure track) present their latest piece of legal scholarship through a 20-minute talk, and then field questions from colleagues to vet the strengths and weaknesses of the draft article’s premise. Historically, non-tenure-track folk (including myself at the time) were not typically on the speaker lineup. One of my fellow non-tenure-track colleagues cautioned that he would not want to be an “interloper” on the Tuesday Faculty Workshop stage. Still a bit oblivious to faculty dynamics, I thought, “Well, I respectfully disagree. As new ‘scholars,’ shouldn’t we seek, and be welcomed, to learn how this system works?” I had been slogging on a paper entitled Converting Benchslaps to Backslaps: Instilling Professional Accountability in New Legal Writers by Teaching and Reinforcing Context, and I uncharacteristically felt the urge to talk about it. To a cadre of tenured and tenure-track faculty. Most of whom graduated from Harvard Law School or Yale Law School. And who could be a pretty intense and intimidating bunch.

During the five weeks working with my OPSA students to conquer their trepidation toward the oral arguments, I had to practice what I preached. First, I outed myself to my students, told them about the upcoming faculty event, shared my increasing angst, and then set to work to upturn my internal messages. Anytime the looming faculty presentation occupied airtime in my brain, my tired mental messages began to loop: “You’re not as smart as they are. They’re going to tear your work apart. Who are you to have an opinion about law teaching? Who are you to write a law review article? You went to The University of Virginia School of Law, not Harvard or Yale. Your writing isn’t intellectual enough. They’re going to think you’re wasting their time.” Working Step 3 of my personal program, I sat down at my desk, took out a legal pad, and wrote:

Be open.

You care about what you have to say.

You absolutely know what you are talking about.

You have something interesting to say and an important perspective grounded in experience.

You write for a living.

UVA Law is ranked No. 8 in the country.

This is only 20 minutes of your life.

You’re a good, smart human who tries hard.

It ultimately really doesn’t matter whether they all like you or not.

You deadlifted 150 pounds this week; you are strong. Go be strong.

I made copies of that handwritten sheet of personal messages and distributed it to my OPSA students, encouraging them to craft their own reinvention assertions.

The day of the Tuesday Faculty Workshop, sporting my go-to cheerful bright green knit dress and black cardigan, I marched into the event space armed with a PowerPoint, handouts, and the 10 personal taglines tucked in a folder. I plunked in the designated seat at the crest of the horseshoe-shaped table arrangement and inhaled five deep breaths, plastering what I am certain was a deranged-looking smile across my lips. My heart jackhammered. I scanned the room for at least one smiler or nodder, and found three. As faculty trickled in, piled their lunch plates with lasagna I surreptitiously special-ordered from the cafeteria (instead of our usual cold cuts), and occupied their seats, I commenced my talk. Four minutes in, the PowerPoint technology failed. I kept talking for a full minute before I noticed a colleague gesticulating at the blank screen. IT guys swarmed the dais like SWAT, hovering over my laptop, clicking, tapping, jiggling plugs. That demon—my blush—began enveloping my face and neck. This time, instead of letting my automatic physical responses and the routine mental script seep in, I mentally “stopped, dropped, and rolled.” I quickly fired up the new taglines, and invoked a few extras: “This is important to you. Keep going,” and “You blush. So the heck what.”

I waved off the IT guys, brandished a handout, and cracked a joke: “Good thing the public speaking-phobe has two backup plans!” Colleagues chuckled and nodded, I took a deep breath, carried on, and it went great(ish). The PowerPoint even rebooted. Later, I received an email from one of the tougher critics on the faculty, a recognized scholar in criminal law (my worst law school grade): “You have an endearing innocence about your mode of speaking that makes people want to listen. Excellent job.” Another 20-year veteran of the law school wrote, “You can teach anything.”

It was not perfect, by any stretch. Not my finest intellectual moment. But I got through it by cartwheeling my internal message and refusing to let the automatic negative script invade that space. I followed Dr. Breggin’s advice: “[R]eject communications and actions that threaten or offend you.”³⁵⁸ My outdated mental soundtrack was threatening and offensive. At the onset of the heat of panic, I chose to reject it, interrupted the automatic loop, initiated my new positive mental prompts, and kept going. It worked.

My current repertoire of positive and productive slogans includes:

Perfection is boring; be yourself.
You care about what you have to say, and you care about people.
You have a different and interesting perspective to bring to the table.
Your face is going to turn red, it’s life surging through you, and others will just have to deal with it.
You finally like yourself; not everyone needs to like you.
You are a good human being.
If people are not listening to you, or ignore or talk over you, it’s their loss; let them be.
If you feel drained during or after speaking, remember that’s normal for you.
You work on yourself every day; you are putting your best self forward.

Exercise #4

Hopefully, in Step 1, you transcribed your historical messages, reflected on their origins, and started to realize that the one-sided commentary from the past is no longer relevant to your present law student or lawyer persona. Years, months, or weeks have passed, circumstances have changed, and you have evolved. It’s time to overwrite those messages and create new ones—helpful, productive, energizing maxims.

At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that because your mental soundtrack has had years, maybe even decades, to lock into place, the knee-jerk messages likely are going to continue to pop up for a while, unannounced and uninvited, like annoying, freeloading houseguests. That is why we must write down both the old and new slogans, to enrich our awareness of their wording and phrasing. That way, when the tiresome messages reappear, we recognize them immediately, temporarily let them loiter, consciously acknowledge, “Oh yeah, here they are again,” and then, swap in the new slogans. Eventually, our reaction time will shorten; our new soundtrack will kick in almost instantaneously as we mute the old one.

Consider the following prompts, and then contemplate a list of new personal taglines that can help you recalibrate and take control of your thoughts in an upcoming law-related interpersonal encounter:

I feel strongest and most like a rock star when: _______________________. [Note: This could be weightlifting at the gym, playing the guitar, cooking, running, painting a picture, rehabilitating an abused pit bull, whatever. Be specific with the details. The point is to identify an environment in your life where you feel almost invincible. We want to bring some of that swagger into the legal context.]

I am really good at: ___________________________________________. [Note: This can be completely unrelated to law. Again, we are trying to identify aspects of ourselves that showcase our strengths. Then, we bring some of that swagger into the legal context. For example, some of my law students and law office colleagues were amazing ballet dancers, football players, artists, and singers before law school.]

I feel really smart when I: ___________________________________________.

I feel really physically capable when I: ______________________________.

People seem surprised when I: _________________________________________.

My best day was when I: _______________________________________________.

My ideal day is when I: _______________________________________________.

People listen to me when I talk about: ________________________________.

I bring something different to the table because I: ___________________.

I am not afraid to speak to others when: ____________________________. [Note: Identify circumstances in your daily life in which interpersonal communication or public speaking is not a problem for you at all. Be specific. Is it with your best friend, a personal trainer, the Starbucks barista, a stranger on the subway, the toll collector, workshop classmates, fellow churchgoers, etc., … We identify our strengths in these circumstances to bring them into the law context.]

Now that you have reflected on the scenarios in your life in which you feel most powerful, write out at least 10 positive personal slogans. If you need a prompt, or are not sure how to phrase them, try these:

I am a ______________________ person.
I bring ______________________ to the table.
I care about ______________________.
I deserve to be treated ______________________.
Perfection is boring; be ______________________.
Who cares if people can see [insert your individual physical response to stress]; I will keep talking and it will go away.
Who cares if I don’t express myself perfectly; it is more important in this moment for me to be ______________________.
Not everyone needs to like me; ______________________ likes me.
This doesn’t have to go perfectly; my goal is to get through the experience, while doing the best I can while I am learning, and reminding myself that______________________.
I do not need to be perfect at this; this is just practice in ______________________.