Are You a Lonely Lawyer?

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely lonely place.  Not many people get you.  Not even other lawyers.  See, many attorneys who hang out there shingle think that running their business (because that’s what it really is, not a law practice) think that the rules of “regular employment” still apply: 9-5 hours, 45 minute lunch breaks, 401K, health insurance, 2-weeks vacation, etc.

All that goes out the window when you start your own practice.  I’m not saying that you don’t have perks but they certainly don’t follow the rules of regular employment.  You can work 10am to 12pm or you can work 7am to 9pm, you can take days off without having to report to anyone, you will find it a pain in the neck to find affordable health insurance, guess what employer contribution to a retirement plan suddenly means?

All that can be sorted out and you will get to a familiarity and comfortable level with all of this.  But what do you do about the loneliness?  Not the “he broke my heart and I’m home crying” loneliness, the kind that when you meet your 9-5er friends and they can’t relate to a thing you do?  They can’t go for breakfast with you at 10am on Wednesday, whenever you whip out your credit card they will always say, “well, you can just expense it” (I love this one, who do they think you are expensing it to?) and of course the concept of time with family is foreign to them outside of weekends and holidays.  I actually took the day off this Memorial day just so I could spend some time with my “regular” friends (let’s just say at 6am on Tuesday morning we went back to our very different routines).

So how do you overcome the loneliness?  It’s actually quite simple.  Surround yourself with like-minded individuals and entrepreneurs.  And if you care about your well-being at all please do NOT just associate with other lawyers.  There are a lot, seriously, a LOT, of unsuccessful solo practitioners who either don’t know how to run a business or are still stuck thinking they are regular employees (in which case they should not be running their practices to begin with).

Spend your time with SUCCESSFUL entrepreneurs (I highly recommend a “mastermind group”).  The ideas and strategies that are used in business transcend industries and an attorney can learn as much about running and marketing his business from a plumber as a carpenter can learn from a chiropractor.  Do not become deluded into thinking that you are running a law firm.  We are all running businesses and the truths apply universally.  So get out there and make some new entrepreneur friends (but keep the old ones, they’ll be the only ones available to play on the weekends).