The Most Rehearsed Answer in Law

I want to help you stop running on empty and calling it fine. This week, that starts with a question you'll answer on autopilot a dozen times before Friday.

"How are you?"

"Good. Busy!"

My standard response for years. "Busy." I wore it like a badge and delivered it in the exact bright tone we all use. Meanwhile, my jaw was tight, my chest was doing that thing where it forgets how breathing works, and I'd forgotten how to belly laugh with my friends (who had time to hang with friends?).

THE PROBLEM

Lawyers are professionally trained to perform "fine." Composure is part of the job. Clients need to see it. Judges expect it. And opposing counsel will use anything less against us. So we get very, very good at it.

Here's what that skill costs.

Earlier this year I spent weeks reading through a private forum of thousands of lawyers. The phrase "mental health" appeared hundreds of times across the archives. Every single mention was about clients. In eighteen months of messages, no lawyer said it about themselves. A majority of attorneys now report feeling stress most or all of the time, and in the rooms where we talk to each other every day, you'd never know.

Fake-fine works. You can run on empty for years and win cases the whole time. But when you perform fine long enough for everyone else, you start performing it for yourself. And that's the real cost: not that other people can't tell how you're doing, but that eventually, you can't either.

WHY THIS WORKS

Ending fake-fine doesn't mean telling everyone how you really feel. It begins privately, in the sixty seconds when you finally tell yourself the truth - long before you say a word to another person.

Here is what I learned the slow way. Your body has been keeping track this whole time. The tight jaw, the raised shoulders, the breath that stops halfway down. When you pause and let the real answer surface, even silently, even for one breath, something in you unclenches. You haven't fixed anything yet. You have simply paused long enough to hear your own truth.

THREE THINGS TO TRY THIS WEEK

1.    Answer yourself before you answer them. Next time someone asks how you are, take one breath before the automatic line comes out, and silently name the real answer first. You can still say "great, busy" out loud. The practice is knowing your truth while you say it.

2.    Let your body file the report. Once today, stop and check three places: your jaw, your shoulders, your breath. Let whatever you find be information. Your body has been telling the truth all along, and this is you listening.

3.    Keep one no-performance zone. One person, one page, or one minute a day where the real answer is allowed. A law school friend, a journal, the driveway before you walk in the door. Guard it the way you guard a filing deadline.

THE TAKEAWAY

Composure is a professional skill, and you get to keep it. Losing track of yourself is a cost, and you can stop paying it. The first honest answer belongs to you.

THIS WEEK'S RECESS

Once this week, when you feel "great, busy" loading, pause for one breath and let the true answer have a second of you, silently, just for you. Then respond out loud however you choose. Notice what your shoulders do when the truth gets acknowledged. That's the whole assignment.