The Law of Attraction Explained
By Liza Vasquez ICF CMC and Jeffrey F. Silber MBA CMC
Certified Master Business and Life Coaches
Have you ever wondered why other lawyers in your practice area seem to attract more new clients than you do even though you have equal or more experience and more solid expertise than they do; or despite your having a more flexible billing structure; or despite the fact that you provide better client service?
The key word above is “attract.” If you are not aware of it, there is a concept called the “Law of Attraction,” which may be operating as the main factor for your competition’s obtaining more clients than you do. Certainly, there may be many other factors at play which explain this phenomenon, but let’s take a look at the Law of Attraction and see if it relates to your situation.
The Law of Attraction, simply put, is defined as:
The ability to attract into our lives whatever we are focusing on. It is believed that regardless of age, nationality or religious belief, we are all susceptible to the laws which govern the Universe, including the Law of Attraction. It is the Law of Attraction which uses the power of the mind to translate whatever is in our thoughts and materialize them into reality. In basic terms, all thoughts turn into real things eventually.
If you focus on positive thoughts and have goals that you aim to achieve, you will find a way to achieve them with massive action. This is why the universe is such an infinitely beautiful place. The Law of Attraction dictates that whatever can be imagined and held in the mind’s eye is achievable if you take action on a plan to get to where you want to go.
But we would like you to understand the Law of Attraction from a different point of view. To that end, we want to use the natural attraction force, Gravity, to explain how this may relate to you.
Do you know how Gravity works? We know it is the force that keeps us and all the other living creatures on the ground together with everything else that is not actually part of or attached to Mother Earth. There is even a formula that calculates the velocity at which objects fall to Earth. Those are examples of what Gravity does, but it is not how it works. In the same way, your competitor is getting more new clients than you are, could be an example of the Law of Attraction, but probably you don’t know how your competition does it.
We are not physicists and most likely neither are you.
Nonetheless, let’s see if we can make a simplistic attempt to show you how gravity works. Maybe you know that larger, or more specifically, heavier objects attract smaller or lighter objects. This is where it gets a little tricky. The heavier an object, the more it distorts space. What the hell does that mean?
To illustrate, picture putting a bowling ball in the middle of your bed. What happens? It creates a dent in your mattress so that if you put a tennis ball on the edge of your mattress, it will roll toward the bowling ball because of the dent in the mattress bowling ball created. Instead, if you put the tennis ball in the center of your bed, it is not heavy enough to create a dent in the mattress and so it would not cause another tennis ball to roll towards it.
That is a two-dimensional example of how heavy objects create gravity by distorting space. For most of us, imagining this in three dimensions is quite difficult and that’s why we used the two-dimensional example of your mattress example.
This also illustrates the law of attraction in several ways. Imagine two associates in a law firm. Both have good educational and social backgrounds. and both are doing excellent work. However, Associate A continuously expresses her love for practicing law and how she has no greater desire than to become a partner in this law firm. While on the other hand, Associate B makes it known that even though he does excellent work, he is still not convinced that he wants to practice law for the rest of his life.
If you are a partner in this law firm, to which associate would you devote more time? To whom would you pay more attention, or give more training, and which one would you give more responsibility and more complex matters to handle? Associate A, of course, because you would not feel that your efforts would be lost inasmuch as you believe she is highly likely to stay with your law firm in the long run.
Let’s go back to the mattress illustration, her image is much heavier than that of the light-weight image of Associate B. It is a natural phenomenon that in the legal world, more people are attracted to Associate A and more opportunities come her way.
In terms of attracting clients, this illustration shows that the attorneys who attract more clients are heavier than you are – metaphorically speaking. Your desire for more clients might be heavy but the weight of your desire does not go beyond you into the real world. Your real presence in the legal world needs to be much heavier if you want more clients and more opportunities to roll toward you.
If you are convinced, you should now ask yourself: How do I make myself heavier? If you haven’t noticed, what we are really talking about is your Personal Brand. So, here is a brief summary of how to make your presence and image heavier in the universe of clients.
1. Find a specific issue in your practice area that you want to be known for. Just being a good litigator or a good IP or a good labor lawyer is not enough of a story to make to stand out from your competitors. You will want to be the “go-to” lawyers on some specific topic. Find that topic.
2. Do you have enough credentials to be considered a Thought Leader on that subject? If not, you may need more education: more course work, certifications or even an (additional) LLM.
3. Now you have to make yourself known in the world. How? By publishing articles in social media: By having as many public speaking engagements as you can; by joining as many professional organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, and Industrial organizations, such as the Pharmaceutical Association, as you can; by being quoted in business periodicals (in print and online); by being an expert guest on radio and TV business programs.
4. Become friends with as many people as you can, including the parents of your children’s friends.
If you take these four basic steps to begin with, you will be well on your way to having a heavier presence that will distort the social space that exists in the market for legal work so that more new clients roll towards you.
Good luck.
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