What Having Brain Surgery Taught Me About Being a Parent. And About Practicing Law. (Part 2)

I Can Do Hard Things

My father grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where he acquired an assortment of folksy sayings and corny jokes which he retold so many times that we all knew them by heart. One of his favorite folksy sayings was “I need [X] like I need a hole in the head.” This is how I used to think about running my own business - too much work, too risky, too hard. “I need to run my own law practice like I need a hole in the head,” I may have said.

So as I sat in the recovery room at Johns Hopkins with a literal hole in my head, this saying occurred to me. I thought of my dad and had a good chuckle. Turns out, a hole in the head wasn’t so bad after all. And it occurred to me - what else had I been writing off as too hard/scary/risky that might also be worthwhile? I allowed myself to consider all of the positives that might come with running my own practice - I could be more flexible for my family, I could stretch myself, I could make a difference in my community, I could build something that I was really proud of. So I’ve decided that I need to run my own law practice like I need a hole in the head. Which is to say, bring it on.