Perception and Reality

Lots of bar exam takers at this point (3 weeks until the exam) tend to lose perspective and in some cases, any touch with reality. That prompted me to record this video about "The Map and the Territory..."

I hope you find it helpful!

Internal Representations

I rarely give up an entire post to someone else, but one of my "heroes" is Bill Harris, the founder and CEO of Centerpointe Research and the developer of the Holosync meditation system. His unique methodology has been employed by many of our bar review students as part of our Successful Test Application Resources ("STAR") with incredible success.
Bill recently sent out an email that I thought perfectly summed up the problem facing lots of bar students right now and so I want to quote it at length and encourage you to go to his website (or ours) for more information.
Take your time and read this (more than once if necessary). He's describing a basic truth about how we process information and act on it...based on something he calls "internal representations..."
------------------
"Because the internal representations you make create your moment-to-moment feelings and other internal states, which then lead to your behaviors, the people and situations you attract or become attracted to, and what meanings you assign to the events of your life.

There are two basic categories of internal representations:

• Those of what you want (or what you think is possible)…

• Those of what you don’t want (or, what you’re worried about, afraid of, or want to avoid).

When you make internal representations about what you want, you feel good and things go pretty well. When you focus on it, you quite often get what you want. But when you make internal representations of what you don’t want…

…you feel bad, and you
often end up with more of
what you don’t want.

When this distinction first occurred to me a number of years ago, an important question immediately popped into my mind. 

You’ve probably already thought of it: 

Why do some people continually make internal representations of what they don’t want when the consequences are so negative? In other words, why do some people focus so much on what they’re afraid of, what they’re worried about, or what they want to avoid—when doing so increases bad feelings and…

…increases the possibility
that you’ll get what
you don’t want?

Perhaps you do this—though I’d be willing to bet that you’re doing it a lot less now that you’re using Holosync.

People who focus a lot on what they don’t want, unfortunately, tend to attract or create more of it. The mind is a goal-seeking mechanism. And, you tell it what to seek by making internal representations of it.

Oops.

In fact, I’ll make a blanket statement here: if an area of your life that isn’t working very well, you can be sure that in that area of life you’re focusing on—in other words, making internal representations of…

…what you don’t want.

And, you’re probably not aware that you’re doing it! What’s more, if you’re doing this outside your awareness, how much choice do you have about it?

None.

If you have trouble making money, you’re probably making internal representations of what you don’t want regarding money (not having enough of it). 

If you’re have trouble making friends, you’re probably (unconsciously) focusing on what you don’t want in that area (not having any, being alone, not being liked). 

In fact, any area of life that’s chronically problematic for you, if you’re curious enough (and aware enough) to look inside, you’ll find that when you think about that area of life, you’re focusing on what you don’t want. 

Amazing, don’t you think?

Here’s a crucially important rule about life:

Those who focus on what they want in any particular area of life tend to be successful in that area, all other things being equal. 

Those who focus on what they don’t want generally have trouble.

Another obvious and crucial question: 

What causes a person to
habitually focus on
what they don’t want?

I’m glad you asked.

If someone, experiences some sort of trauma, especially during childhood, that person will develop an underlying belief that something about the world is dangerous, or at least potentially dangerous. 

To avoid that danger, then, doesn’t it make sense that you would watch out for that danger, so as to avoid it? But, to do that…

…you have to focus
on the danger!

In other words, you have to make internal representations of what you don’t want. And doing that creates two unfortunately outcomes:

• It instantly creates some sort of bad feeling, and…

• It gives your mind an instruction: figure out a way to create or attract MORE of it.

Let me now introduce another important principle:

You can create negative feelings and negative outcomes ONLY if you do so unconsciously. If, however, you focus on what you don’t want with awareness, you will clearly see how you are creating bad feelings and negative outcomes, and…

…you won’t be able
to keep doing it.

Any motivation to keep doing it will dissolve.

To create negative outcomes, whether internal or external, the internal representations you make have to happen outside your awareness. 

Creating a feeling or a behavior has three steps:

1. You have an experience. You see, hear, touch, taste, or smell something.

2. You respond to that experience by making certain internal representations.

3. Those internal representations cause you to feel something, which leads to a behavior, a response.

Where is the choice in these three steps? 

In the second step. You have some choice about what you experience, but not a lot. You do, however, have a choice about how you respond (i.e., what internal representations you make) to the experience…

…IF you are aware of that step.

If you aren’t aware of it, it will happen automatically, based on your internal programming.

Once you become aware of what you are doing, once you actually see the internal representations you (unconsciously) make, and see the direct connection between these internal representations and what happens in your life, you’ll stop making them! 

As I said earlier, awareness gives you choice, and no one with a choice would…

choose to create bad feelings
or negative outcomes.

The key insight here is that your experiences, and certainly your response to your experiences, don’t “just happen” to you. Your experiences—how you feel in each moment, how you behave, and the people and situations you attract or become attracted to—are something you DO. 

So when you feel overwhelmed, over your threshold, ask yourself, “Okay, how am I DOING that? How do I DO feeling overwhelmed?” Overwhelm doesn’t “just happen”—there’s something you DO that creates it. 

You DO feeling overwhelmed by focusing, in some way, on something you don’t want. 

The way out of this is to develop the awareness that allows you to clearly see what you are doing inside that create the bad feelings, the negative behaviors, or that causes you to attract or become attracted to people and situations that don’t serve you.

This is exactly what happens to those who use Holosync regularly. Long time Holosync users universally report that over time…

…they become amazingly
aware of HOW they’re
creating their lives.

Next, if you practice directing that awareness to the internal processes that directly create how you feel and behave, what seemed to be just happening becomes a choice."

Are you crazy yet?

I know, I know. There's less than 45 days until the Feb 2012 bar exam and no one understands what you're going through! Awful, isn't it? Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. Here's a video I recorded on that subject. I call it "Reality Sets In." I hope it helps!

Exercise actually helps you study...

For quite a while now, I've been a proponent of the newer educational theories linking physical activity and exercise to improved mental performance. Here's a link to one of my videos on the subject.




Last week the following article quoted Dr John Ratey, who wrote the book "Spark" that I reference in my work. I think the article is worth a read...


“Exercise doesn’t make you smarter…it just makes you normal.” This great quote from John Medina in Brain Rules illustrates the essential role that physical activity plays in maintaining a sharp mind. The brain is best at solving problems related to surviving in an unstable environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. This is what the brain did for virtually all of human history until we engineered the need for physical activity out of everyday life.


Rush to the Head
Exercise literally increases the blood volume in a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus, a vital part of the hippocampus. Exercise also stimulates BDNF, a protein which exerts a fertilizer-like growth effect on certain neurons. This protein keeps existing neurons young and healthy, rendering them much more willing to connect with one another. It also encourages neurogenesis, the formation of new cells in the brain. The cells most sensitive to this are in the hippocampus, inside the very regions deeply involved to human cognition and memory.
It’s what happens after exercise that optimizes the brain. Exercise increases levels of IGF-1 (a growth hormone), and in the hippocampus IGF-1 increases neuroplasticity (the way we learn associations with things), and neurogenesis. It’s another way exercise helps our neurons bind.
“The way exercise changes our brains is more effective than wine, medicines, and doughnuts,” says John Ratey, author of Spark. But too often, this is what we use to attempt to manage stress.


Find Stress Relief
Stress, lack of exercise, and junk food harms your brain. Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. The hormones released in response to stress are meant for immediate danger response, not chronic stress. Chronic stress makes adrenaline scar blood vessels while cortisol damages the cells of the hippocampus. Since exercise influences metabolism, it serves as a powerful way to influence synaptic function, and thus the way we think and feel.
As hard as it might be right now, instead of wine, medicine and doughnuts, what might be best to deal with stress is to get moving. Even if it’s just taking a short walk. The more you move, the better you’ll feel. Your movement choices don’t have to be exercise or nothing. A little exercise with a lot of movement in general can help you cope with stress – a great coping strategy to have at this time of year.
No matter how sharp or smart you are, your brain gets better with physical activity. It has a 100% effectiveness rate and the side effects are a healthier body as well!"


Great advice and I encourage you to try it for yourself. It will make a difference!

Exam Perceptions can be Deceiving...

The Nov 2011 MPRE results came out yesterday and as usual, most people passed and by wide margins. Our students all currently report  passing, which is good news!
What strikes me about the results, however, is a fairly common refrain that I hear after EVERY standardized exam (MBE, MPRE) but fortunately not from every student. It basically goes like this:
"The test was really hard. I never saw questions that tough. I'm sure I failed."
This is always troubling but with the MPRE it's almost laughable. You see, a person taking the exam has very poor perspective on the process. In the "heat" of the moment, every question seems inscruitable and every answer choice filled with nuance and danger. Fortunately, to mis-paraphrase Freud, "sometimes a bar exam question is just a bar exam question..."  In other words, perceptions of a test-taker can be deceiving and the feedback after the exam that claims a "doom and gloom" result is often misplaced. 
In the case of the MPRE, this is almost always true. The test is actually pretty easy and unless you talk yourself out of correct answers and over-think the exam or treat it as a test of your personal morality, you should pass.
One of our MPRE students was certain he had failed the Nov test and equally certain that the length and complexity of the questions was extreme. He was quite specific about how few questions took less than a page of the answer book so we went to the source - the NCBE, (who write and score the exam) to ask if something had changed. Of course, their response was "No. It's the same test for many years now." And the student's test results?
You guessed it. He passed. :-)
So if you're in a post-mortem session about a test, try to keep some perspective and if you have none, move on. You can't change the test after the fact and it does little good to brood over the test itself. 
We keep a pretty close eye on the tests and what the examiners are doing. It's one reason our results continue to outperform the averages in every jurisdiction where we prepare students for the exams. Your perceptions as a test taker are like those warnings on side view car mirrors: "objects may be closer than they appear" to which I would add, "and easier."

Why the big bar reviews fail...

I've just finished reading Walter Isaacson's wonderful biography of Steve Jobs. Near the end of his life, Jobs makes a statement about why the large tech companies have gone into decline:
"The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they're the ones who can move the needle on revenues...So the salespeople end up running the company."


I think the same analysis holds true in the bar review. The early pioneers in the bar review field were innovators at one time, but as they gained near monopoly strength, they stopped innovating. Indeed, they stopped teaching and began to simply put their energy, their resources and their focus on selling rather than on helping students learn how to pass the bar.


Compounding the problem is that the large bar reviews rely on law schools who simply don't hire professors who can teach. In a NY Times article this week, the point was made that law schools don't teach lawyering. One reason, according to the article: "there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching. ... it won't win them any professional goodies, like tenure, a higher salary, prestige, or competing offers from better schools."  In other words, the schools don't teach, the big bar reviews hire the professors who don't teach and the student is woefully prepared for the bar and for a life of practice should they ever get past the exam.


Into this mess comes the law student with a six figure debt and no clue about how to get through the exam and to find a job. That's why I take our task at Celebration Bar Review so seriously. Instead of focusing on marketing, we focus on teaching. Over the last 20 years, education has made huge strides and we have attempted to implement them to our students' advantage through the use of technology, stress management, multiple intelligences, directed personal feedback and more.


The big bar reviews, and their companions, the big law schools, still live in the world of the Harvard Law School of the 70's - the 1870's - and Christopher Langdell's case method. It is just now being understood by the consumers of legal education that they are being cheated by their school - and their big bar review - when those institutions and corporations fail to adapt and integrate substance with effective teaching pedagogy. A system of education based on the assembly line "stand and deliver" model of Dean Langdell is doomed in our fast and competitive world. But don't tell that to the big bar reviews. They've invested millions in classroom settings, canned lectures and ponderous books that haven't changed more than an iota since they were created. And why should they? As long as the "salesmen" run the process, it's all good - at least for the companies.


But it doesn't have to be that way. Change can happen. #OccupyWallSt can become #OccupyBigBarReview.  It can be done. At Celebration, we continue to have pass rates that far exceed the state averages, and often with a student base of repeat takers and foreign attorneys who are often the least likely to succeed. How do we do it? By continuing to innovate, research and employ the best technology and teaching methods with a passion for our students and not just our bottom line. 


Something that the others should think about...

Studying for the bar exam on an iPad

One of the things I hear a lot lately are happy, surprised students who are discovering how much they really, REALLY like studying on their iPad with Celebration Bar Review's iBar program. So, when I saw this article last week about why people are excited about learning content on an iPad I wanted to share it with our readers.


I absolutely agree with the author about the novelty, portability and ease of use with tablets but I would add this about the use of an iPad for the bar - it just makes it all manageable.


Anyone who's received the stacks of bar review books and (in the old days, tapes or CDs) knows how overwhelming the process could be. I'm sure that many people took one look at the box and mentally gave up on their studies. The same for those in classroom courses - too much information, too fast and too many distractions. Not a good way to study productively.


Instead, today with our iBar program, everything you need to study for the test is in the palm of your hand. There's even a study guide book built in to the device!


We were the first bar review to put our course online, the first to use iPods, the first to offer tablet apps and of course, the first to put our entire course catalog on the iPad. We're proud of those firsts because they each represent a focus on the student and the learning rather than the marketing and the hype. If you're looking for a course that knows how to integrate technology and teaching, take a look at our offerings. Like our current students, we think you'll be impressed!

20 Hours a Week

We're now less than 4 months from the Feb 2012 exam and this is a time when I encourage students to actively begin their studies. My suggestion is that a Feb student starting now spend between 10-20 hours per week in study at this point.

Why an upper limit of 20 hours? Shouldn't you spend more, cram more, memorize more, stress more? Isn't that what the bar exam is all about?

Not really. It makes for good drama and a few "sympathy rounds" from friends and family but it's really not necessary to spend more than 20 hours a week studying.

And why that top limit? Well, in my experience, most people can manage up to 20 hours of study time ON TOP OF work, family, church, social commitments and such. Go much beyond that number and you're into full time study mode (which is fine for those just graduating from school but unnecessary and unlikely for everyone else). Above 20 hours a week and you'll burn out or something else will have to go (not a good option for children, spouses and employers!). 

The good news is that 15-20 hours right now is plenty of study time if you know WHAT and HOW to study. As one of my current students who has passed three other bars wrote to me today:

"I have heard numerous people say the couldn't do law school because

they couldn't "memorize all the cases."   When I said that you could sail
through lawschool at the top of your class without knowing the name of more
than a few cases -- Palsgraf, Miranda -- and that you never had to cite them
by name in a test, they probably thought I had smoked my lunch.  It is all
about thinking like a lawyer, I tell them, and it is that style of thinking
that makes people hate lawyers."

He's right. You don't need to memorize for the bar exam either and that's why a "smart" course won't push you to memorize and recite and spend more than 20 hours per week trying to cram it in when it's not necessary. Just something to think about today...

Are law schools and bar exams necessary? Really?

A recent op-ed in the NY Times makes the "case" for de-regulating the legal profession and doing away with both law schools and the bar exam. Obviously, as a bar review provider, I have a bias in preserving my business, but I also happen to believe in the importance of professional testing. 

The article's author, Clifford Winston, a Sr Fellow at the Brookings Institute is a fan of deregulation of all types but here he makes a series of bizarre assumptions about what lawyers do and why the free market would improve access to legal services. If lawyering was simply a matter of filling out templates in routine matters, he might be right, but that's a very small part of the profession. In fact, the need to analyze and rigorously advocate for a client (in court, in writing and in negotiation)  should not be something only the wealthy have access to while the rest of the population can just make do with non-lawyers. 

Winston's proposal that we simply allow anyone to practice law including corporations (since the Supreme Court thinks they're just dandy - WalMart Legal Services anyone?) is fanciful free-market foolishness. It appears that the only people who would actually have access to trained lawyers under his proposal would be the very wealthy. Too bad for all those alleged criminals and poor people who currently rely on legal aid and public defenders.

Really? Seriously? I'm wondering who Mr Winston would use for HIS legal work?

I suppose that deregulation thing worked so well in the financial industry and the airlines and the telephone business that we ought to just try it once more and see if we can get it right this time. Or, we can continue to improve legal education and the testing methods and standards that currently exist to work towards a better level of legal service for everyone. 

Welcome to MYCelebration!

In 1995, my wife, Sara and I decided to take the plunge with a new business venture: a home study bar review course based on the then-popular SMH Bar Review course with which I had been affiliated for the last 3 years.  Following my graduation from Georgetown University Law Center and a successful passage of the bar exam using their materials, I had become a regional director and teacher for the live courses we then taught at SMH. With the founder's retirement, we acquired the core materials and decided to convert the course to audio cassette tapes, photocopied books and a lot of prayer that it would all work out.


And boy did it! 


Seventeen years later, we are the leader in personal homestudy bar review courses for the California, New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey and Multistate Bar Exams. We've prepared thousands of students during those years and innovated almost every major advancement in the bar review field: the FIRST bar review online, the FIRST to use iPods, the FIRST to use iPads, the FIRST to provide multiple levels of mentoring, the FIRST to offer free course videos via YouTube, the FIRST to provide full course apps for Apple, Nook, Android, the FIRST to integrate meditation, photo reading and much, much more.


One thing, however, has remained constant through all the technology and educational advancements and improvements: our commitment to students as individuals and to their success as people first and lawyers second. Oh, we've taken some heat for that. You can Google us and find some pretty awful, even downright nasty things that have been written (most of it anonymously), but you'll also find hundreds and hundreds of testimonials from people around the world who've benefited from our Christian approach to this high-stress, high-stakes exam. In fact, most of our business today comes via word-of-mouth as people tell others about their positive experiences with Celebration Bar Review. 
We don't know of any other course with greater customer loyalty than ours. In fact 100% of our 2011 students said they would recommend our course to others!


And that's why we called this blog "MYCelebration!" because ultimately, everyone who takes our course is hoping and planning to have MYCelebration when their results are released. If you're reading this blog, we assume that's your goal as well, so in this blog, we'll post our reactions to the current questions and concerns we hear on a regular basis about how to pass the bar exam. You'll find much of this same material on our YouTube page where we have posted over 75 free videos on a wide range of bar exam preparation subjects. We'd like to hear from you. What do you want to know about the bar? What rumors have you heard? What concerns you about the test? Let us know and we'll give you our thoughts through this forum. We hope you'll bookmark this site and check back often or subscribe so you'll know when new posts are made.