Lawyers work hard. It’s what they do.

The good news is that hard work can be deeply satisfying. It feels good to do a job well done. Accomplishment gives us meaning. Hopefully this resonates, because it’s a feeling you’ve experienced before. But it’s not just me making this assertion about the connection between hard work and happiness – academic research backs it up.

In the early 1980s, well known psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conducted a series of studies meant to understand the psychological impact of common behaviors we engage in every day. One of the major insights of his work was to show that depth generates meaning. He found that people are actually happier doing deep work than they are relaxing. Based on his findings he concluded: “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.” Csikszentmihalyi popularized the term “flow state” that is used to describe the effortless feeling experienced by high achievers – from authors to athletes – operating at peak performance during periods of hard work.

It’s called “hard” work for a reason. Any time you’re trying to learn a new skill, or attempting to build something worthwhile, it’s hard. Most of us start enjoying something only after we get good at it. And it takes practice and hard work to get good. Take playing the guitar, for example. Practicing guitar is painful (physically and emotionally) and frustrating for several months until enough work has been put in to build up calluses and learn the basics. Once someone earns their calluses and their skills improve, however, guitar starts to become fun and satisfying. Resilience is built up during the painful periods of any worthy endeavor, and serves as a bridge to the other side. If you want to do something that’s satisfying, most times you have to do it when it’s not.

When I read a book, I’ll remember the broad strokes of the story or, in the case of non-fiction, the main thrust of the message. But it’s rare that I’ll remember the details of a minor character, or the intricacies of a professional development sequence.

Every so often, however, I’ll come across a book passage that makes me sit up straighter in my chair, grab my highlighter, and “dog ear” the page. It’s a message so powerful that it stays with me long after I’ve finished the book. It’s profound and remarkable when it happens. And it only seems to occur when the circumstances are right: which is when a powerful message reaches you at a time in your life when you’re ready to receive it.

This is not a post about legal marketing or attorney business development in the purest sense. It’s more a message about how to draw inspiration, grow, and prosper as people and professionals from the world around us. I, for one, find that it’s often how you spend your time outside of work that dictates how successful you become at work. And there are few more beneficial activities than reading great books.

I’m going to keep this short, because I want to you to be able to get back to what really matters – your work – as quickly as possible after consuming this concise, important message: Lawyers should use social media as little as possible, and the time they do spend on social networks should be very purposeful and intentional.

Here’s why:

First, social media platforms are engineered to be addictive. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media platforms grow and get paid based on how many people use their platforms and for how long. These companies compete in what’s called the “attention economy” and, as Seth Godin (who famously eschews most social media) explains, we are the products these companies sell. They round up our attention, and sell it to advertisers. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that social media platforms are engineered to be as addictive as possible. And it’s working. Facebook’s head of marketing recently discussed in a speech that the average millennial checks his or her phone 157 times daily. That’s insane, because…

This is a message to young law firm associates:

Your law firm cares about your personal and professional growth. But make no mistake, the law is a business – often a cutthroat one. Your firm has made a big investment in you in terms of salary, benefits, training and overhead. It expects a return on that investment. As a young lawyer, it’s important to understand how your firm perceives your value, and to a great extent it comes down to dollars and cents.

Law firms rely on leverage, which means having lots of associates in place to work and bill. Young associates should understand they are typically less valuable (in terms of dollars and cents) to their firms than their mid-level and senior associate colleagues. It’s a fact of life in today’s economic environment that clients are less willing to (as they see it) subsidize the on-the-job training of young lawyers by paying for unproductive time. This means that as a young lawyer you must be productive and effective – and not just busy – to stand out.

How many times have you read a book or blog post, listened to a keynote or podcast, and been inspired to take on the world? You know the feeling. The writer or speaker drops a bunch of knowledge bombs which open your mind to new possibilities. You can barely wait to get back to the office and start implementing everything you’ve learned.

So you sit down at your desk, pull out your legal pad and create a cascading flowchart full of goals, with a corresponding laundry list of to-do items. You’re pumped. You’re ready. Time to go big. This time it will be different.

But then it’s not. In fact, if you’re anything like me, you never even get started. The legal pad that you were so excited about sits undisturbed on the corner of your desk. Pretty soon it gets filed away with all the others. You go back to doing things the same way you always have.

Sound familiar. Feel familiar? It does to me. At least it used to.

There’s a great deal that the legal industry can learn from the technology industry. A good starting point is Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup, which is filled ideas that are just as valuable (perhaps more valuable) for large, institutional law firms as they are for fast-growing tech startups.

Another great source of ideas and inspiration is the unstoppable force that is Jeff Bezos and his Amazon empire. Bezos has many powerful mantras for his business, but this is one of my favorites: It’s always “Day 1” at Amazon.

What he means is that Amazon will never stop being a startup. It’s a message Bezos drilled down on in a recent letter to shareholders (written from a building he works in named “Day 1”), in which he wrote:

“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”

There’s a misconception in the marketplace that the issues of personal branding for lawyers and business development for lawyers are distinct concepts. This post is meant to dispel this misunderstanding. It all comes down to appreciating the fact business development in the legal industry is a long game played over many years, and that the key to building a sustainable book of business is building a strong personal brand.

A short-term approach to business development requires the hard sell. This approach is colorfully demonstrated in the classic movie “Glengarry Glen Ross,” in which Alec Baldwin’s infamous character, Blake, admonishes a group of real estate salesmen to “ABC: Always Be Closing.”

We’ve all dealt with salespeople who take the ABC hard sell approach. Sometimes it even works, especially when what they’re selling is a commodity, or some other inexpensive product or service that we might happen to need at the moment. Despite the salesperson’s off-putting approach, we buy because it’s convenient to do so at the moment. Or we just want to get the person off the phone or off the porch.

It even works when selling legal services. What else could explain the prevalence of attorney billboards blaring 1-800 vanity phone numbers lining many cities’ highways and byways?

The practice of law has changed in many important ways over the years, but in many others it has not. In today’s cutthroat, competitive culture, we have a tendency to romanticize what things were like in the legal profession “back in the day.”

When we think of the “Giants” of our profession, those who left a lasting, indelible impact, names such as Darrow, Webster and Marshall come to mind. These lawyers shared many similar characteristics, including intelligence, courage and high ethical standards. They also lacked something that almost all lawyers today have in common: none graduated from law school. They read the books. They apprenticed. They learned by doing. And in the process they shaped the law, and the legal profession, in ways that are studied in law school classrooms across the country today.

Abraham Lincoln followed a similar path. We’ve all heard the stories of Lincoln studying his law books by candlelight in a log cabin. He lacked the formal legal training that is taken for granted in today’s profession. But while Lincoln may not have had a Harvard law degree, he – like many other legal stalwarts – learned through the school of hard knocks the principles and practices of what it takes to become a successful and respected lawyer.

When I was a young associate, every time I sent an email to a partner or client that included work product or a bit of analysis I found myself eagerly anticipating a “pat on the back” email back in my inbox. As you may have guessed, those pats on the back rarely came.

That’s life in a law firm! But it’s a lesson that took me some time to learn. Too often, I found my mood shifting with the winds – and whims – of the day’s feedback. What I finally learned is that as a law firm associate you need to learn to look for approval within yourself, and not from external sources.

But that’s easier said then done. In order to have that type of measured mindset, young associates need some tools in their toolboxes. One of the most effective is an “oldie but goodie” called Stoicism.