The lessons of 30 years as a lawyer: Stay in the moment.

Here is lesson No. 2, gleaned from my three decades in the practice of law: Stay in the moment. In 30 years, I have been involved in lots of adversary proceedings: trials, arbitrations, administrative proceedings. Here is what I learned: There are highs and lows. My advice is not to get sucked into either. Let’s talk famous lawyer David Boies and the Buddha. In "Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure And Others Don't," Paul Sullivan writes that Boies ignores the highs and lows: "If Boies stopped to congratulate himself on a particularly deft cross-examination or tried to tally up where he stood, he would lose his focus . He would be out of the bubble." Former Austin cabdriver Brian Haycock nailed the idea of being in the moment in his excellent book, "Dharma Road: A Short Cab Ride to Self Discovery." He explains that Buddhism is about "taking life a moment at a time, living it and then letting it go. Everything else is a distraction. A score is a distraction. A goal is a distraction.” He writes, “This moment is the only moment that matters. To attain our goals, we need to have no goals at all." Boies & Buddha, attorneys and counselors.