Some argue that lawyers lack resilience. I concur. We don’t bounce back well. Far too often, we take a hit and lie down on the floor. We don’t get up.

Here’s the story I see quite often:

Lawyer decides to do some marketing. The focus is lunches with referral sources. Lawyer gets charged up about it and makes a handful of calls. A few lunches get arranged.

Lawyer goes to lunch, and it goes well. Lawyer goes to another lunch, and it goes well also. Then lawyer goes to the third lunch, and something goes wrong. Maybe the other lawyer is a no-show. Maybe the other lawyer is difficult. Maybe the lunch just feels awkward.

Now we’ve got a lawyer doing pretty well at traveling down the referral source lunch path. Out of three lunches, two went very well. Pretty good performance.

What does the lawyer see? The lawyer can’t stop focusing on the one lunch that went poorly. That’s all the lawyer remembers after the third lunch.

What does the lawyer do?

You already know the answer. The lawyer doesn’t schedule any more lunches. She comes to a grinding halt on the marketing plan.

Why? You already know why; you totally get what I’m saying. You completely understand. We all get it: we know ourselves.

That’s what most of us do, that’s who most of us are, and that’s why we kind of stink at marketing.

We fall off the bike, and we lie there on the ground, rolling around in misery. We know we should climb back on the bike and pedal, pedal, pedal, but we don’t.

We aren’t very resilient.

That’s not the end of the story, however. We aren’t stuck like this forever. There are things we can do.

I found this great article in Law Practice Today that provides six tips on becoming a resilient person. It can be done.

Resilience can be learned. We aren’t stuck as we are; we can change. Get up off the ground, get back on the bike, and get back to lunch.