BusinessLawGuy's Blog

Confidence is the most valuable currency in business, but most people trade in counterfeit bills. It’s easy to mistake volume for conviction and swagger for certainty, and later watch that same person crater when the pressure actually arrives. Real confidence isn’t about never showing weakness. It’s about knowing your value so thoroughly that you don’t need to perform it every minute of every meeting or day.

People with confidence show themselves in how someone handles status. I’m talking about people who can laugh when they’re the punchline, who can take a younger co-worker’s criticism of their strategy without getting defensive, and who don’t need to dominate every conversation to prove they belong in the room. These are people who understand that confidence isn’t a rigid posture you hold. Instead, it’s fluid and adaptive. It’s something you can afford to relax because you know it’s still there when you need it. Watch someone’s face when they’re gently ribbed at a dinner meeting. The secure ones smile and volley back. The insecure ones catalog it as a debt to be repaid.

But here’s where it gets tricky, because confidence isn’t the same as that false modesty routine that everyone’s running these days. You know the type. They accomplish something significant and then spend ten minutes explaining how it was really everyone else, how they barely contributed, or how they were just lucky to be in the room. That’s not humility, but another kind of performance. When you’ve actually done the work and delivered results, you don’t need to diminish yourself to make others comfortable. Real confidence means accepting credit without apology, standing in the spotlight when it finds you, and saying “thank you” instead of deflecting with some rehearsed speech about how you’re just a regular person who got lucky.

What I’m describing is actually a balance, something I think of as the space between dignity and humility. It’s about occupying your proper place without either shrinking from it or expanding beyond it. The truly confident people I work with know when to defer and when to direct, when to listen and when to speak with authority, when to acknowledge mistakes and when to defend their decisions. They’re comfortable moving up and down the status ladder because they’re not desperately clinging to any particular rung. Their sense of self isn’t dependent on always being the smartest person in the room or the most liked or the most humble. They just are who they are, and that consistency creates trust.

This matters in business because confidence is contagious and so is its absence. People are reading your signals constantly. They’re asking themselves whether you believe in what you’re doing, whether you can handle adversity, or whether you’re going to fall apart when things don’t go according to plan. The leader who can take a joke, accept being wrong, and still project calm certainty when decisions need to be made—that’s who people want to follow and builds something that lasts. Everything else is just noise from people trying to convince themselves as much as they’re trying to convince you.

Many people secretly believe that other people should just know what we’re thinking. When your co-worker doesn’t acknowledge your contribution in a meeting or when your client appears to be ignoring your carefully crafted advice, it’s natural to feel slighted. The narrative that forms in your head is compelling and feels true: they don’t care about you, they don’t respect you, or worse, they’re deliberately undermining you. But in these situations, your focus is on the wrong participant in the meeting or conversation.

The narrative focusing on others is almost always wrong. The fact is that they simply have no idea what’s going on in your head. Think about your own mental state right now. You’re juggling deadlines, worrying about your own projects, replaying conversations from earlier today, thinking about what you need to pick up on the way home, and processing dozens of competing priorities. Your consciousness is a crowded, noisy place. Now multiply that chaos by every single person you interact with professionally and the fact that those people are going through the same thing you are with there own deadlines and issues.

The world operates under a dangerous assumption that competent, caring people will simply intuit what others need. You think that if you work hard, your efforts will be noticed or if you need support on a project, one of your teammates will volunteer. But intention doesn’t equal impact, and internal experience doesn’t equal external expression. You will find that people you work and deal with genuinely are shocked to learn that you feel undervalued or ignored, likely responding with complete sincerity, “I had no idea you felt that way.” The vast majority of slights aren’t malicious acts—they’re failures of communication.

Even when you do speak up and clearly communicate your needs, you’re fighting against the forgetting curve. The person you’re expecting to know what you want or need has had seventy-three fires to put out and processed hundreds of emails since your last conversation. Your ambition and issues, which feel so central and urgent to you, are but one or two data points that for them are buried under an avalanche of competing information. This isn’t an excuse, but it is the reality of how human memory works under cognitive load. People need reminders, and needing to remind someone doesn’t mean they don’t value you.

The solution is to recognize that clear, repeated communication is a feature of healthy professional relationships. When you need something, say it explicitly rather than stewing in resentment. When you’ve communicated something important, circle back on it without feeling like you’re being annoying. The most successful business relationships aren’t between people who can read each other’s minds—they’re between people who’ve accepted that mind reading is impossible and have built communication systems to work around that fundamental limitation. People aren’t ignoring you because they don’t care. They’re just trapped in their own heads, same as you, trying to make sense of their own world and reality.

One lesson that separates the truly successful from the perpetually frustrated is the understanding that your ego is the biggest obstacle standing between you and your goals. Harry Truman supposedly said, “You can get anywhere you want in life as long as you don’t care who gets the credit,” and nowhere is this more true than in the world of business.

Most professionals have been in a situation where someone they work for took credit for their work. For most, the first instinct is outrage. To pour everything into a project and watch someone else bask in the praise is difficult. This type of behavior destroys trust within a team.

Early in my career, I worked on an important pleading on a big case. When the partner I did the work for took credit for the pleading during a call with the client I initially was frustrated and the partner sensed it. After the call was over, he told me how much he appreciated my work. He also told me that even though I did the work he felt it was important for the client to think it was his work, which didn’t make sense to me. I made sure to remember this later when I had younger attorneys working on cases for my clients and to always give them the credit for their work when speaking with clients and others we worked with.

People who focus relentlessly on results rather than recognition are the ones who become indispensable. When you’re known as someone who elevates everyone around you without demanding a spotlight, opportunities find you. Clients trust you. Co-workers want you on their matters or to work for you. Your reputation becomes about substance rather than self-promotion.

Professional success is a long game built on compounding trust and demonstrated value. The professional who lets someone on their team make an important presentations or a young attorney do an oral argument instead of doing it themself is creating a culture where talented people want to stay and contribute. Real influence comes from being the person everyone knows gets things done. When you stop keeping score of who did the work, you free yourself to focus on what actually matters, which is building a strong team, and sharing in success together.

Professionals who achieve lasting professional success all share something fundamental: they’ve learned to embrace discomfort as a constant companion rather than an obstacle to avoid. Every meaningful career milestone I’ve witnessed has required someone to lean into uncertainty and stay there long enough to see it through.

The uncomfortable truth about building a career worth having is that comfort and growth occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. When you’re comfortable, you’re maintaining. When you’re growing, you’re stretching beyond what feels natural and manageable. It’s moments of acute discomfort that are precisely where professional transformation happens. Those who plateaued aren’t less intelligent or less capable; they simply reached a point where avoiding discomfort became more important than pursuing growth.

What separates high performers from everyone else isn’t some superhuman tolerance for pain or stress. It’s the recognition that discomfort signals opportunity rather than danger. When you feel that knot in your stomach before making a difficult decision, you’re standing at the exact threshold where meaningful progress becomes possible.

The business leaders I admire most have developed what I call strategic discomfort tolerance because they’ve trained themselves to interpret anxiety as information rather than a warning to retreat. They take the meeting with the investor knowing they might get rejected. They have the hard conversation with their business partner before resentment calcifies into something worse. They make the move or pivot when their gut tells them it’s time, even when the path forward isn’t clear.

When you’re wrestling with a career decision that scares you, if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re probably not growing, and if you’re not growing, you’re volunteering for comfort in a world that rewards adaptation and courage. The meaningful life you’re after is one with professional impact, financial security, and genuine satisfaction. That life sits on the other side of a thousand small moments where you chose growth over comfort. That’s not motivational rhetoric, it’s the pattern I observe regularly. Your willingness to pay the price of admission, again and again, determines whether you get to experience what’s possible when you stop playing it safe.

Two people can look at the exact same contract, the same set of facts, the same business opportunity, and come away with completely different interpretations. It’s not that one person is right and the other is wrong. It’s that we’re all viewing the world through the unique filter of our own experiences, biases, and beliefs. The old saying holds true: we don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.

Think about the last time you sat across the table from someone you were negotiating with such as opposing counsel, a potential business partner, or a new client or vendor. Their assessment of risk related to what was being negotiated probably looked nothing like yours. None of the perspectives each of you had are objectively correct or incorrect, but they profoundly shape how you each assessed the situation and made decisions.

The danger comes when we forget that our lens exists at all. When we mistake our subjective interpretation for objective reality, we become rigid, defensive, and ultimately less effective. The most successful professionals I know share a common trait: they actively question their own assumptions and seek to understand how their personal history colors their judgment.

This self-awareness isn’t about second-guessing every decision or falling into analysis paralysis. It’s about recognizing that your background and experiences shape how you view everything and are foundational to your comfort (or lack thereof) with risk. When you understand how you see the world, you gain the ability to step outside that viewpoint when necessary. You become better at understanding people, communicating with diverse stakeholders, and making decisions based on actual circumstances rather than projected fears or assumptions.

The next time you find yourself certain that you’re seeing a situation clearly while everyone else seems confused, pause for a moment. Ask yourself what experiences are shaping your perception. Consider what someone with a different background might notice that you’re missing. This practice doesn’t weaken your judgment, it strengthens it. Because while we’ll never see the world with perfect objectivity, understanding our own lens gives us the closest thing to clarity that we can achieve. And that edge makes all the difference.

The most expensive problems my clients face aren’t complex or sophisticated contract disputes. They’re the conversations that never happened. The partner who should have been confronted about their underperformance three years ago. The vendor relationship that limped along burning money because nobody wanted the discomfort of renegotiating terms. The employee whose problematic behavior metastasized into a toxic workplace because management kept hoping it would resolve itself. These situations started small and could have been manageable, and fixable with a single uncomfortable conversation.

Conflict avoidance in professional settings doesn’t keep the peace. It creates a slowly spreading rot that corrupts every adjacent relationship and decision. Think about what happens when a business owner dodges that conversation with a business partner about their spouse meddling in company decisions or a problematic employee. That avoidance tacitly creates a culture where discomfort is more dangerous than dysfunction, and that lesson gets reinforced every single day no one speaks up. Meanwhile, the actual problem grows over time and becomes much more difficult to resolve.

The brutal irony is that people massively overestimate how bad these conversations will actually be. In my experience, about seventy percent of the “difficult” conversations my clients finally force themselves to have go better than expected. We build these interactions up in our minds anticipating how horrible they will be only to discover that most reasonable people on the other side of the table are just waiting for someone to be direct with them. And even when the conversation goes poorly, even when it ends a relationship or leads to a departure, you almost always look back and wish you’d done it sooner.

I challenge you to write down the professional relationships or situations that drain your energy when you think about them. The partnerships that feel off, the arrangements that don’t work, the boundaries that keep getting violated, the expectations that need resetting. Most people can identify between five and ten issues where they’re actively choosing silence over resolution. Now imagine that you handled all of those this month with basic directness and professionalism. It will benefit your business, your stress level, and allow you to reclaim mental real estate.

My bet is you’re about eight awkward conversations away from the professional life you actually want. The question isn’t whether you can afford to have those conversations. It’s whether you can afford to keep avoiding them.

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, once observed that “It’s the things that you learn after you know it all that count.” This profound insight strikes at the heart of a dangerous trap that ensnares countless professionals and business leaders: the illusion of complete knowledge. In offices and boardrooms across America, executives often reach a point where they believe their experience has taught them everything they need to know about their industry, their market, or their craft. This moment of perceived mastery becomes the very threshold where real learning begins—and where many careers either flourish or stagnate.

The business world is littered with companies that fell victim to this knowledge trap. Consider how Kodak’s executives “knew” that digital photography would never replace film, or how Blockbuster’s leadership “understood” that customers would always prefer browsing physical stores over streaming content from home. These weren’t failures of intelligence or capability, they were failures of intellectual humility. The most dangerous phrase in any organization is “we’ve always done it this way,” because it signals that learning has stopped just when adaptation becomes most critical.

What separates thriving professionals from those who plateau is their recognition that expertise creates blind spots as often as it provides clarity. The attorney who has practiced corporate law for twenty years must remain open to how artificial intelligence is reshaping legal research and document review. The marketing executive with decades of campaign experience needs to continuously absorb lessons about social media dynamics and consumer behavior shifts. The financial advisor who mastered traditional investment strategies must embrace new understanding about cryptocurrency, ESG investing (ESG investing is an investment strategy that evaluates companies based on their environmental, social, and governance performance, in addition to financial metrics), and changing client expectations. True mastery lies not in knowing everything, but in maintaining the curiosity to question everything you think you know.

Wooden’s insight reveals a fundamental paradox of professional development: competence can become the enemy of growth. When we reach a level of success, our confidence in our existing knowledge can close us off to new information that contradicts our established beliefs. The most valuable learning often comes disguised as challenges to our assumptions, feedback that stings our ego, or opportunities that seem to fall outside our wheelhouse. The executive who dismisses employee suggestions because of their own seniority, or the consultant who refuses to acknowledge gaps in their expertise, has stopped learning precisely when their accumulated knowledge should be providing the foundation for deeper insights.

The professionals who consistently outperform their peers understand that knowledge is not a destination but a journey without a final stop. They cultivate what Zen Buddhism calls “beginner’s mind”—approaching familiar situations with fresh eyes and genuine curiosity about what they might discover. They seek out mentors who are both older and younger, recognizing that wisdom can come from unexpected sources. They embrace failure as tuition for education that cannot be gained any other way. Most importantly, they understand that the moment you believe you know it all is precisely the moment you stop growing and in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, those who stop growing start falling behind. The things you learn after you think you know it all don’t just count, they often determine whether your next chapter will be written in success or regret.

There’s an old saying that “strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet,” and after decades of practicing law, I can tell you this isn’t just feel-good philosophy—it’s sound business strategy. Every interaction you have, whether it’s with the barista at your morning coffee shop, a potential client or professional referral source at a networking event, or the person sitting next to you on a flight, represents an opportunity to build your professional network and reputation. The legal world, despite its reputation for adversarial relationships, actually thrives on personal connections and mutual respect. The opposing counsel who treats you with professionalism today might refer a client to you tomorrow, or you might find yourselves on the same side of a deal next month.

In the business realm, kindness isn’t weakness. Instead, it’s intelligence disguised as decency. When you approach every interaction with genuine warmth and respect, you’re making an investment in your future that compounds over time. That person you helped navigate a complex contract negotiation will remember your patience and expertise when their company needs legal counsel for a major acquisition. The associate attorney you mentored will one day become a partner who can send significant business your way. Even the receptionist at a client’s office who you always greet warmly can become an invaluable ally in scheduling meetings and getting your calls returned promptly.

My profession experience has taught me that reputation is everything, and reputation is built one interaction at a time. Word travels fast in business circles, and how you treat people when you have nothing to gain from them speaks volumes about your character. I’ve seen lawyers who were brilliant legal minds struggle to build successful practices because they were dismissive to support staff, condescending to younger attorneys, or unnecessarily aggressive with opposing parties. Meanwhile, attorneys with perhaps less technical skill but genuine kindness and respect for others often find themselves with thriving practices and loyal client bases.

From a purely practical standpoint, being genuinely nice to people makes business transactions smoother and more efficient. When you’ve established goodwill with counterparts, negotiations become collaborative problem-solving sessions rather than hostile standoffs. Deals close faster when all parties trust each other’s intentions. Court proceedings run more smoothly when lawyers maintain professional courtesy even during heated disputes. The time and energy saved by avoiding unnecessary conflict can be redirected toward serving clients and growing your practice.

The most successful business professionals I know understand that success is not a solo endeavor. They recognize that every person they encounter might someday be in a position to help or hinder their goals. By treating everyone with kindness and respect—from the CEO to the maintenance staff—they create a network of goodwill that supports their ambitions. In an increasingly connected world where social media amplifies both positive and negative experiences, your reputation for kindness and professionalism becomes one of your most valuable assets. Remember, that stranger you’re kind to today might just become the friend who opens the door to your biggest opportunity tomorrow.

In the relentless hustle of modern business including my world, legal practice, there’s a dangerous trap that snares even the most ambitious professionals: confusing motion with progress. You know the type—the executive who fills every minute with meetings yet struggles to point to tangible results, or attorney who brags about working or billing 80 hours a week while their cases languish in mediocrity. This phenomenon isn’t just counterproductive; it’s a career killer disguised as dedication.

Business executives fall into the trap when they equate being busy with being productive. The manager who responds to emails at midnight isn’t necessarily more valuable than the one who delegates effectively and focuses on strategic decisions during business hours. Activity addiction manifests in various forms: attending every meeting regardless of relevance, micromanaging tasks that subordinates could handle, or pursuing initiatives that look impressive on paper but don’t move the needle on core business objectives. These professionals mistake the feeling of being indispensable for actually being effective.

The legal profession is particularly susceptible to this delusion because billable hours create a perverse incentive structure. When your value is measured by time rather than outcomes, it becomes easy to mistake endless busy work for meaningful legal work, or to confuse lengthy client calls with genuine problem-solving. I’ve watched smart attorneys burn out chasing activity metrics while their less busy colleagues advance by focusing on serving clients by actually moving their matters forward towards resolution. In my world the partner track isn’t won by the lawyer who works the most hours, it’s claimed by the one who works hard and delivers results for clients and the firm.

The distinction between activity and achievement becomes crystal clear when you examine what separates successful professionals from their perpetually busy counterparts. Achievement-oriented lawyers focus on understanding their clients’ business objectives and crafting legal strategies that advance those goals efficiently. They spend time on case preparation that matters, build relationships that generate referrals, and develop expertise in areas that command premium rates. Similarly, high-achieving executives prioritize decisions and actions that directly impact revenue, market position, or operational efficiency. They understand that saying no to good opportunities allows them to say yes to great ones.

The path forward requires continuous prioritization and regular assessment of whether your daily activities align with your professional objectives. Start each week by identifying the three most important outcomes you need to achieve, then audit your calendar to ensure your time allocation supports those priorities. For attorneys, this might mean spending less time on routine correspondence and more time on complex legal analysis, which showcases your expertise and is focused on results. For business leaders, it could involve reducing attendance at status meetings while increasing time spent on strategic planning and team development. Remember that your career isn’t built on how busy you appear, it’s built on the problems you solve, the value you create, and the results you deliver. In a world where everyone is busy, achievement is what sets you apart.

In the world of business , I’ve seen countless entrepreneurs and executives make decisions that were technically legal but strategically disastrous. The phrase “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” isn’t just philosophical wisdom—it’s practical business advice that can save your company from costly mistakes, damaged relationships, and long-term reputation harm. Too many business owners confuse what’s legally permissible with what’s actually smart, and this confusion often leads to decisions that pass the legal test but fail the common sense examination.

Employment law provides some of the clearest examples of this principle in action. Yes, you can terminate an at-will employee for almost any reason that isn’t specifically prohibited by law. But firing someone right after they return from medical leave, even if technically legal, sends a chilling message to your entire workforce and may trigger expensive investigations or wrongful termination claims. Similarly, you might have the contractual right to implement harsh disciplinary measures or slash benefits during tough times, but exercising these rights without considering the broader impact on morale and retention often creates problems that far outweigh any short-term savings.

The intersection of legal compliance and practical wisdom becomes particularly critical when dealing with workplace policies and procedures. Many companies create employee handbooks that technically meet legal requirements but read like legal documents rather than communication tools. Just because you can include every possible disclaimer and restriction doesn’t mean you should create policies so rigid and punitive that they discourage the very behaviors you want to promote. Smart business owners understand that policies should guide positive outcomes, not simply protect against lawsuits.

Consider the common scenario of non-compete agreements and confidentiality provisions. While these contracts might be enforceable in your jurisdiction, slapping overly broad restrictions on every employee, including entry-level workers who have no access to trade secrets, often backfires. Such aggressive approaches can hurt your ability to attract talent, damage your reputation in the industry, and even invite legal challenges from employees or competitors who view your tactics as overreaching. The most successful companies I work with use these tools strategically, applying them only where truly necessary and crafting them reasonably.

The bottom line is that good business judgment requires looking beyond what’s legally possible to what’s practically wise. Before making any significant employment decision, ask yourself not just whether you have the legal right to do something, but whether doing it serves your long-term business interests. Consider the message you’re sending to current and future employees, the potential for unintended consequences, and whether there might be a better approach that achieves your goals without creating unnecessary risks. In business law, as in life, the most powerful tool in your arsenal is often restraint—knowing when not to exercise the full extent of your legal rights in service of building a stronger, more sustainable business.