The lawyer in your head
THE RUB
Tom got the job I applied for. This was back in the 90s, and I was the assistant manager of Cary Quadrangle at Purdue. Our manager left, and I wanted to be the manager of the Quad – a residence hall that housed 1,300 students. Tom was the manager of Shreve Hall which housed 850 residents.
I understood why Tom got the position, and I actually ended up getting promoted to Tom's old position. Tom had more experience as a manager; he had been at Purdue longer than me. “On paper” it made sense.
What bothered me was that Tom was telling others how the head of residence life had reached out to Tom and asked him to apply for the position, implying that the other candidates weren't strong enough to take on the big job.
These rumors kicked me into a downward spiral of self-doubt and outrage. Disappointing outcomes we don’t see coming can trigger these negative mental loops, where we get stuck in an unrelenting cycle of rehashing the same negative thoughts over and over again.
THE FRAMEWORK
Ruminating is thinking like a lawyer, building a case for an outcome we’ve already decided. When I was spiraling over Tom getting the promotion, I wasn't investigating what actually happened. I was prosecuting why I wasn't good enough. Every piece of evidence got conscripted into the same argument: worthless as charged.
Eileen Gu gave me a better model. At 22, she’s the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history. A reporter asked Gu this unusual question: “This isn't supposed to be a rude question, but do you think before you speak? Because you answer questions so quickly and so comprehensively, whether it's about geopolitics or your sport or aerodynamics. Can you take us into your brain?"
Thank you, Charlotte. That's very kind. Oh, man. I think overall, I'm just a pensive person. I'm a very introspective young woman. I spend a lot of time in my head, and it's not a bad place to be. I journal a lot.
I break down all of my thought processes. I think I apply a very analytical lens to my own thinking, and I modify it.
You can control what you think. You can control how you think. And therefore, you can control who you are...
And so I guess for me, it's like, yes, I spend a lot of time in my own head. Yes, I think a lot. But it's not really in an egotistical way. It's in like a tinkering, like a scientist kind of way. I'm always trying to modify. I'm trying to think, how can I be better?
Reflecting is more productive than ruminating. It’s thinking like a scientist. Scientists start with a question, not a conclusion. They look at data, including the uncomfortable data, and adjust their model.
THE PRACTICE
Here are three ways to shift from lawyer to scientist.
Label it. When I catch myself ruminating, it's helpful to take a step back and label the negative emotions I'm experiencing – frustration, anger, envy. Naming my feelings makes them more objective like a scientist labeling a test tube. Once it’s labeled, I can more easily set it aside.
Get more data. What information am I missing? Hearing the rumors about Tom being asked to take on that role put me in a bad mindset. So I went to the director of residence life and ask why he encouraged Tom to apply. He hadn’t. Tom had applied for the position without any prompting.
Zoom out. I ask myself: will this matter in five years? In thirty? It’s funny now to think back on how much that missed promotion consumed me. From here, it’s barely visible.
I still catch myself arguing losing cases. But I know where I left my lab coat.