Time to Replace “I Did the Best I Could” with “How Do I Do Better Next Time.”
by Chase Parnell — October 24, 2019
In a law firm, there are associates and partners. If you’re an associate attorney, you are typically assigned to a partner, and you are that partner’s servant. That’s just the way it is, no hard feelings, you have to earn your way to have servants of your own. When I was an associate in a family law firm, I assisted my partner in his mediations, where our client would be in one room with us and the opposing party would be in a different room with their attorney. There is a mediator, typically a professional mediator or a retired judge, who walks back and forth from room to room with offers and counteroffers to settle the divorce and ultimately avoid a lengthy and painful trial.
In my first mediation, I ended up learning a very valuable life lesson, so while I am definitely happy to not be practicing law anymore, there were some positive take-aways that I wouldn’t have learned any other way.
There I was, suited up and anxious on my first big case with the boss. I was doing the best I could to be helpful, making the client feel comfortable, managing the document drafts going back and forth between the parties, running the numbers in excel to balance the settlement numbers, and chiming in here and there with considerations for the Judge to explain to opposing counsel in the other room.
Despite my effort, I made a lot of mistakes. I botched the numbers in excel a few times, I didn’t save a couple versions of the settlement offers, and I was just generally flustered throughout the day feeling like I wasn’t quite grasping the analysis and high-level strategy behind the moves of the partner I was assisting. In the end, the parties settled, which was a huge sigh of relief because I just wanted this case to be OVER.
These mediations typically take an entire day and sometimes well into the evening. This one ended late so it was just the partner and I left at the office. Everyone else had gone home.
So there I was, packing up my things, exhausted, when the partner comes into my office and ended up teaching me, albeit uncomfortably, the most important lesson I learned during my short tenure with this firm. It was definitely a lightbulb moment.
“So … Chase, how do you think you did today?” He asked, leaning against the doorframe.
My brain was barely functioning at this point, and after a considerable silence, beyond awkward, I responded, “Good. Well, I mean, I know I made some mistakes … but I did the best I could.”
In my mind, that type of response was unchallengeable. I had done the best I could but I still made mistakes. How can you critique someone after you tell them you did the best you could? It’s like you just got done running the 100m dash at an all out sprint. Nobody is going to say, well you just needed to run faster! Impossible.
Thankfully, the partner didn’t say that. What he did say was profound and cut deep enough for me to remember all this time later. He said, “I’m not critiquing your effort, Chase. That’s not what this is about. I’m asking you to think about how you can do better next time.” This might seem like a no-brainer to some of you, that the logical next move is to process and look for ways to improve for next time, but I believe there are a lot of people out there, like me, that don’t actually make that leap from effort to critical thinking.
Now sure, working hard is admirable, but there are a lot of people out there that work their ass off but never progress to the next level because they don’t take that critical next step of pairing their hard work with taking actual concrete corrective action.
For me, I’ve always viewed these types of things as a question of whether or not I have a natural ability in something or not. I’ll never be the best runner out there because I’m just not that genetic specimen. I’m okay with B’s in law school because I’m smart enough but not the smartest guy in the room. I’m going to hire someone to build me a shed in the backyard because I’m just not that handy.
Those are all cop outs really and justifications for mediocrity. I can’t remember the last time I failed in something and then took a step back and really tried to figure it out. Instead of failing and never doing it again because “I don’t have it in me”, shouldn’t I be thinking, “what the hell happened and how do I make the changes to do it differently in the future?” Why is this so hard?
In my recent article about the 2019 UTMB Champion, Pau Capell, I touch on this concept briefly. Pau was an engineer by training before turning pro in ultra running. In listening to Pau, he seems to apply an engineering logic to his training and racing. This is what I imagine happens:
Problem: I felt like crap towards the end of the race, slowed down, and performed poorly.
Typical response: Damn. I thought I was more fit. That sucked. Something weird must have happened. I guess those other guys/gals are just better runners.
Pau’s response: What the F happened? Where was the break in the chain? How do I strengthen that weak link to better sustain myself during those final miles? I will practice X in training and then EAT EVERYONE ALIVE.
And then what happens? He wins UTMB, the most competitive ultra on the planet, in masterful fashion.
Okay, so looking back to that moment when my boss challenged me to improve, I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do better. Literally. It’s like I’d turned off the prefrontal cortex which governs our ability to learn from our mistakes. I thought I did absolutely everything I could do because I was trying really hard ALL DAY. What did he want from me? You hired ME, I thought, this is what you get. There was such a mental barrier to any kind of critical thinking on my part and I’m not sure why.
The partner, alternatively, had all kinds of ideas, things that should’ve been obvious to me. Why don’t you: (1) make a checklist of all the elements of a good settlement offer; (2) review other successful settlements with similar facts prior to the mediation; (3) always do the math three times when calculating the equalizing values; and (4) communicate what you need throughout the day instead of just forging on in uncertainty.
Well alrighty then!
Now, I had all sorts of excuses, which I didn’t communicate of course. And I actually didn’t think he did a perfect job either that day, but when I thought about the list of things he recommended I do to improve, it totally made sense. So this is how he went from a lowly associate to partner. Well done!
One caveat to my experience is that my heart wasn’t in this job, which for me is paramount. I know some people can just do their best no matter what it is, and it’s typically good advice to work hard where you are so that better doors will open for you in the future. If you are a janitor, sweep them floors with gusto because you might just become the maintenance guy, work your ass off there and before you know it you’ll be head of facilities, and then maybe running the place before you know it. I get that, but for me, as an attorney, I didn’t even really care about becoming a good attorney. What for? My heart was not connected to the profession. In reality, I wanted to get out of there! So for me, there definitely needs to be a desire and passion, with a vision of where I want to go, or else I’ll sink like a 1,000 pound anchor to the bottom of the Pacific.
So now that I’m doing what I want to do, now that my heart is invested in Treeline Journal, in living my best life, and helping others do the same, I’m starting to invest in strengthening the links to my fractured chain, I’m ruminating on issues and problems when I’m laying in bed at night, and I’m driven by something that moves me.
It’s a good feeling.
What I’m doing now is essentially writing all day long. Whether it’s articles for the website, our Rise & Grind newsletter, emails, or social media, I’m pretty much a full-time writer. Sure, I could tell myself, you’re no Hemingway Chase, you’re no professional. I could limit myself by what I consider to be my natural abilities there too, but if I apply what I learned from the partner, when I fail and flounder, I will strengthen, improve the product, and get better.
I hope you, as the reader, will stick with us and notice the fruits of our labor. My writing will be good, not because I’m gifted, but because I’m maximizing the lessons learned through trial and error. And I’m committed and driven by the heart in this effort.
Applied to Running.
Now what if we expand this conversation beyond our professional lives and apply it to our ability to improve as a runner. Running is one of those sports that is easy to couch as, you’re either good or you’re not. In ball sports, there are a multitude of skills and drills that can be learned and improved upon. In basketball, ball-handling, free-throws, and footwork are fundamentals that people can really work and see improvement in.
But running is just running, right? Wrong! In running, why have I not viewed poor race results more as a mistake and less as a genetic limitation? Instead of, “I had a bad race” or “I did the best I could” … I made a mistake. That’s fixable!
I know that I for one have been guilty of thinking that the only way I’m going to get better is if I just run more and push harder. Isn’t that all there really is to running? I’ve questioned running coaches and their utility, because what the hell are they telling their runners anyway? How much nuance is there really? I used to joke when people asked me how to improve, “Eat less and run more.” That was a mean joke with a little bit of cruel reality. Because there really isn’t a hack to running. No shoe, nutrition strategy, or mental visualization protocol can substitute for fitness. I always thought the nuance only came into play once you’re at that elite class, Olympic level fast.
Admittedly, my advice was ridiculous, fairly shallow, and pretty irresponsible actually. I would never recommend adjusting the quantity of caloric intake to improve performance, only the quality.
This isn’t a how-to article so I’m not going to go into all the ways we can improve our running, but at its base level, I believe we must try to approach running knowing that we are going to make mistakes. Then, when we identify a mistake or shortcoming, our attention must immediately focus on how we are going to fix it, learn from the experience and ultimately improve, instead of blaming our own perceived natural limitations.
David Epstein, in his latest book, Range, says, “Whether chemists, physicists, or political scientists, the most successful problem solvers spend mental energy figuring out what type of problem they are facing before matching a strategy to it.” I think that’s really what we’re talking about here, making sure we are addressing the right problem.
This is a lot to chew on, I know. At the very least, if we can get ourselves to replace the words, “I did the best I could” with “what happened and how can I do better next time” I think our professional lives, our mental state, and our running will improve dramatically.
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