Day 147: Doing Your Thing

Photo by Benjamin Zanatta on Unsplash

In his talk on “how to live an asymmetric life,” Graham Weaver outlined four principles: (1) Do the Hard Thing; (2) Do Your Thing; (3) Do It for Decades; and (4) Tell Your Story.

In previous posts I’ve covered the overall point of the talk and broken down his first point, Do the Hard Thing.

Weaver’s second point, “Do Your Thing,” sounds cliché. Find your bliss, follow your passion, etc. Yeah yeah, whatever.

Maybe it is cliché, but there’s a deeper point here. As Weaver puts it, when we calculate the odds of success at something, we often underestimate the power of us, at our most excited. The odds tell you what the average person’s odds of success are at that thing. They don’t tell you what your odds of success are.

There’s another reason to Do Your Thing, a reason I found out the hard way.

The Cost of Doing the “Right” Thing

I went to law school knowing I wanted to be a law professor. After I graduated from law school and went on the law teaching market, I had all the generic “right” credentials: Yale Law degree, good clerkship, a love of constitutional law and a publication or two. People coached me on every aspect of the process: how to position myself right, how to emphasize the right things.

What they didn’t tell me was to Do My Thing.

I got lots of interviews for law teaching jobs. I went in nervous, not really knowing how to distinguish myself from the dozens of candidates who had exactly the same credentials I did. Ultimately, I didn’t distinguish myself. I received few call-back interviews and only one job offer. By that time, I was so discouraged by the process that, combined with other personal challenges I faced at the time, I couldn’t even bring myself to go forward. I declined the one offer I received.

Sometimes You’ve Just Gotta Say ‘University of Arkansas’

Fast forward ten years. I’d worked at a litigation firm for several more years. I’d had the big expense accounts and the late nights and road miles to go with it. I’d worked for someone else’s priorities. I’d had entire months when I cried on the bathroom floor every morning before I went to work.

But something else happened: I kept on being me.

I’d become interested in issues in the food system and sustainability, issues that resonated with the overconsumption that I faced in my own life as a law firm associate.

I quit my job, moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and completed an LL.M. in agriculture and food law while playing my guitar in coffee shops and singing in the opera chorus at night and on the weekends. I found a way to rejuvenate myself, and that gave me a vision for how we might rejuvenate our land and water and food. I stayed in Arkansas for several years.

Finally, I decided to go back to the legal profession – and I realized that I still wanted to be a law professor. So I entered the grueling law teaching market again.

Doing My Thing

This time, instead of trying to stand out among smart young Yalies who can teach constitutional law (yawn), I went into interviews talking unapologetically about my thing: agriculture, food, and sustainability.

Sure, a few people looked at my resume and asked, “Why did you go from a J.D. at Yale to an LL.M. at the University of Arkansas?” I understand the question, if you’re only looking at it from the standpoint of credentials. 

But I didn’t look at it from the standpoint of credentials, so my answer was simple and genuine: “Because I wanted to learn about agricultural law.” Typically, they looked up at me with interest and surprise. Here’s someone who isn’t trying to do “the” thing, their expressions said; here is someone committed to doing their thing. It didn’t take much to get me animated and excited when they asked me why I’d chosen that, and before long, we’d have a fun and compelling conversation about food, sustainability, and the role of the law in shaping that intersection.

The upshot: I got 18 interviews, 10 callbacks (more than I could even accept), and, out of the 8 schools I visited, 5 or 6 job offers (I don’t even remember now). West Virginia was my top choice, the perfect place to think deeply about sustainability.

Doing Your Thing Is the Hard Thing

This big break in my career, which I’d been working toward for twenty years, didn’t happen when I played the odds. It happened when I threw out the odds and did my thing.

Instead of being a fungible commodity, I became one of a kind. Not every school was interested in what I did – but plenty were, and to those, I was unique.

Maybe you think you don’t know what “your thing” is. I doubt it’s true. Everyone I’ve ever met gets excited about something. Maybe it’s polka dancing or board games or agricultural law, but everyone has something that makes their eyes light up.

When people tell me they don’t have a “thing,” what they’re usually saying is they don’t trust their thing. That’s real, that fear – and that fear is where you need to focus your attention.

Next time you hear yourself saying you can’t do your thing, try circling back to Weaver’s first two principles: What if you did the hard thing — and did your thing?