As a lawyer, you are responsible for influencing people regardless of what practice area you are in. As a litigator, you want to influence judges, jurors, opposing counsel, and others. As a business attorney, you want to influence investors, parties involved in transactions, banks and other financial institutions, and of course other lawyers. As an in-house attorney, you are responsible for influencing people when it comes to making decisions regarding moving forward on a deal and in what fashion.

One of the greatest lessons Peter Drucker taught Marshall Goldsmith and then Marshall taught me is this: “We spend a lot of time helping leaders learn what to do. We do not spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half of the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

Values-driven organizations are the most successful organizations on the planet. Period. This sounds like a bold claim, right? It is a bold claim, and it is true and… we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The key to “lawyering differently” is to first “see differently.” If you don’t want to burn out or top out, then you must get out. What I mean by “get out” probably isn’t what you’re thinking—though many of your successful predecessors have done just that.