The Red Velvet Lawyer

Fixed vs. Growth Mindsets Today, Tom Asacker provides a nice discussion of why the opposite of success is not failure. Instead, failure leads to success because it gives us lessons, insights, and opportunities to change. With that new information, we are better positioned to succeed.  He suggests that failure leads to success in the same way that exercise leads to fitness.   A second blogger today discussed the criteria Google uses to hire employees.  It looks for three things: cognitive processing and problem-solving on the fly; emergent leadership; and a sense of responsibility that leads to humility and ownership.   Both posts reminded me of the book I read last month  by Carol S. Dweck, a world-renowned Stanford psychologist, called: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success -- How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential (2007).   It describes two mindsets -- fixed and growth. The publisher describes the theme of the book as this: ...

What do you say to new law students about being successful in law school? We will welcome our incoming law school class at the end of this week. For the first time in many years, I will play a role in our week-long Introduction to Law course.  At the end of the week, I will give a presentation on test-taking skills and strategies.  I gave this talk for the first time earlier this summer during our LSAT prep course. This week-end I updated it with several helpful tips based on a couple of blog postings. The first blog posting  -- Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals -- suggests that fundamental changes must happen at our level of identity.  If you seek change by focusing on your appearance or your performance, the change will likely be short-lived. So, for example, if I want to lose 40 pounds by Christmas (as I do), I can focus on how my body looks in the mirror or to my friends. But, as all dieters know, it takes at least 8 weeks be...

An ASL grad posted this Facebook comment in response to my blog posting yesterday about claiming your right to success, abundance, love, and creative energy found here . "Prof. Young, last year you recommended bar takers to do affirmations to boost our confidence and success rates. It felt hokey and certainly could never take the place of diligent studying[.] [B]ut, it definitely helped me relax before the exam and helped reduce my stress during it. A very belated thank you and a recommendation to bar takers that you give wonderful advice!" To make it easier for you to find some affirmations that may work for you, I am providing them below. Find the affirmation that deals with a specific challenge you face right now in connection with the bar exam.  Also, find an affirmation you plan to use shortly before the exam date and as you sit to take the exam.  Write the affirmation ten times in your journal every day.  Say it just as often.  When you say...

Only two weeks to the July bar exam.   Will our 2013 graduates take the big leap?   My business coach recommended that I read, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, which suggests ways to conquer your hidden fear that prevents you from keeping and enjoying greater love, financial abundance, increasing success, and more creative energy.  You can find more information at http://www.thebigleap.net/ Hendricks is a psychologist, writer, and practitioner in the field of personal growth, relationships, and the mind-body connection.  He has written 25 books, taught at University of Colorado, has a consulting business, and graduated from Stanford University. The Upper Limit Problem He uses the term “Upper Limit Problem” to identify our tendency to follow great leaps forward on all these dimensions with big mess-ups.  We subconsciously use the mess-ups to keep us in our comfort zone when increasing success is taking us to new areas of personal growth and...