[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey, everyone. Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law extremely fun.
[00:00:21] Scott Benton: Today we’re going to answer the question of why should you celebrate the wins? Why should you celebrate the wins? That’s a bit of a tongue twister.
[00:00:29] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] There are a lot of reasons why you want to focus on celebrating the wins, but before we get to those, we want to look at how to look at the wins.
[00:01:26] Scott Benton: How exactly do you celebrate a win? And what wins do you want to celebrate? one of the easiest ways to celebrate a win is going to be during your staff meeting. In some staff meetings at firms, there’s a portion which is usually at the end of the staff meeting that is dedicated to celebrating wins. Although, I’ve been in plenty of meetings where they actually start off with the wins.
[00:01:48] Scott Benton: Sometimes the people who had the wins, they’ll get up and they’ll talk about them, or sometimes the wins are collected maybe the day before the meeting, and then they’re read off by the person who’s leading the meeting. So what’s nice about [00:02:00] that is you can see the compounding power of reflecting on so many wins at the same time.
[00:02:06] Scott Benton: That’s a really nice way to set the tone, not only for the rest of that meeting, but also for the rest of the day. It’ll have a very powerful impact. Now sometimes when meetings start. You might notice they begin with the problems that they’re going to talk about, which tends to create a more negative space, especially if those problems seem difficult or they might require a lot of thought or planning or strategizing.
[00:02:31] Scott Benton: So if you start out your meeting with the problems, you start deep inside a hole that from there, You have to climb out of which you can do with wins at the end of the meeting. But you also have an opportunity here to start out with all of your victories and successes. And what that’s going to do is it’s going to help energize the environment.
[00:02:51] Scott Benton: That’s going to help you get through the more difficult work ahead. If you’re discussing issues that are coming up. Now, this is going to help inspire everyone to really [00:03:00] roll up their sleeves and dig in and get to work. Sometimes people come into a meeting and they’ve. already been dealing with a lot.
[00:03:07] Scott Benton: They have a lot on their plates. It’s possible that they’re not even really all together there because their mind is focused on these other issues. So by resetting that meeting that they’re coming in with, if you have wins or anything like positive outcomes that you build a productive foundation upon, you can help create a very productive meeting from there, even if it’s going to be more negatively charged.
[00:03:33] Scott Benton: In nature, you can start with those wins and that really underscores the foundation. But celebrating the wins during a meeting is not the only place where they can be celebrated. In fact, you really want to have wins that are in your head at all times, especially the ones that are more recent. So that way, if you’re talking to a colleague or maybe your supervising attorney, you want to bring up those wins and maybe even lead with those when you sit down and you start your discussion, [00:04:00] whatever it is you’re talking about.
[00:04:01] Scott Benton: Now you want to notice the differences between leading with wins and ending with wins. What if you could do both? What if it’s a win sandwich? Whenever you’re talking about wins, they they go in the beginning and they go in the end and then you have The real meat of the discussion in the middle.
[00:04:16] Scott Benton: That way, you’re going into an interaction on a positive note and you’re ending it on a positive note. And you’ve just created a large amount of forward momentum and confidence and positive energy for your team. So the more you can create that kind of resonance and that kind of faith and optimism, The stronger and more capable that you’re going to build up everyone else around you, which leads to honestly any countless number of rewards, some that you’re going to see right away and some that you’re going to see later.
[00:04:48] Scott Benton: Maybe you’re just going to feel them. It just feels good to start and end with wins. Now also don’t forget that whenever you see someone else who’s had a win that you stop and you [00:05:00] recognize and you celebrate their win as well. And now there’s certainly a lot of power in celebrating your own wins, and you do want to do that, and you do want to focus on that, but you’re going to notice there’s even a greater and a bigger and a stronger outcome when you turn that spotlight onto somebody else and you highlight their accomplishments.
[00:05:19] Scott Benton: Notice what happens when you turn the spotlight on somebody else.
[00:05:23] Scott Benton: So now we know how to celebrate wins and we know where to celebrate wins, but let’s answer that burning question of why do you want to celebrate wins and why celebrating wins is going to be so important and something that you need to really think about.
[00:05:38] Scott Benton: Now first, as practicing law in general is pretty complex, and it can be hard work where most of the time you’re dealing with people. Dealing with people often means that the level of complexity is heightened. So that means, In general, you’re going to encounter all kinds of setbacks and obstacles and unexpected problems that just show up, [00:06:00] and that can affect your morale or even the morale of people in the firm.
[00:06:04] Scott Benton: So when that happens, and morale is low, the momentum of the work is going to start to feel like it’s slowing down. And in fact, work can feel like it’s just an uphill battle no matter what you do, and your days can feel like they’re very long. Not to mention the stress that those conditions can often cause that can make it difficult to enjoy your evenings or your weekends because you’re carrying that all with you.
[00:06:30] Scott Benton: Ideally, we want to keep the momentum high. And we want to keep it going in that direction, in that high direction. We want to build on that. And we want the day to feel like it’s fun and like it’s energized. So that when you blink It’s almost as if you got a ton of high quality work done. And although you don’t want to quit because you’re having so much fun, you look at your watch and it’s five or 6 p.
[00:06:56] Scott Benton: m. And it’s simply time to go home. When you get home, your mind is [00:07:00] filled with all the victories and accomplishments and Everything that you did at the firm that day. So you enjoy your evening and honestly in the back of your mind, you can’t wait to get back into the office in the morning so that you can pick up where you left off.
[00:07:14] Scott Benton: And that is why you want to celebrate your wins as often as possible. I hope that’s been helpful and I hope it’s useful information for you to use that’s going to help make your day as a practicing attorney fun and energized and all day long and the next day and the day after that and the week after that and the month after that.
[00:07:33] Scott Benton: My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to our show and for tuning in and listening to this episode. Now, if this is material that you’re enjoying and you’re finding beneficial and you’d like to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom 2 courtroom dot com. That’s classroom. The number two courtroom dot com. You can leave us your contact information. We’ll send out an alert to you. And if you do like this material, don’t forget to share and subscribe. That’ll also help you [00:08:00] stay on top of our newest episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time. Thank you so much.
