Success Your Non

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Success: Your Non-Billable Efforts Will Make You Lucky Yesterday, I posted a Pele (The Brazilian super-star soccer player) quote that I particularly like on social media sites. After posting, I received a comment: Very true, but we may add that luck also is one factor. Luck is indeed a factor, but I have always believed Successful people make their own luck. I also like: Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. You might enjoy reading:  5 Things People Who Make Their Own Luck Always Do. If you are a long-time reader, you know I contend I owe my  legal career success to luck. But, in most cases, it was luck meeting preparation. I’ve told these stories before. They illustrate my point. I had been practicing law 12 years and I was in Roanoke, Virginia, when I received a call from the general counsel of what was then the third largest construction company in the United States. He said: We have a $30 million problem in Atlanta and we’ve been told you are the lawyer to help us. At the end of the call, I asked who recommended me. He told me it was a Federal Highway Administration lawyer who had been on a panel with me on the subject of the problem in Atlanta. Was it luck? Yes. If the general counsel had talked to the lawyer in the office on either side of the lawyer who recommended me, they wouldn’t have known me. I can’t begin to tell you how many non-billable hours I had spent studying, writing and speaking on that subject. The preparation I did months before being asked to be on the panel is what gave me the opportunity. If you can bear with me, I’ll give one more example. It was Thanksgiving weekend in 1990. I was still practicing law in Virginia. I watched national news coverage of a bridge collapse on the west coast. Later that evening I received a call from the Transportation Secretary of the state where the collapse occurred. He asked if I could fly to the west coast on Monday and meet with his team. At the end of the call, I asked: How did you find me? He told me the name of a famous bridge designer who had recommended me. Was it luck? Yes. The Transportation Secretary talked to a famous bridge designer who had heard me speak and read what I had written on bridge design and bridge failures. Once again, I can’t begin to tell you how many non-billable hours I spent studying those subjects, including documents from a FOIA request of the Federal Highway Administration. My preparation over many, many months before is what gave me the opportunity.     I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.