Today’s my birthday! Yep, on Valentine’s Day.
Turning 40 feels much different from turning 30.
People would joke about how back pain starts in your 30s. The “joke” would get real tiring after the first time. For a whole decade, I thought they were being dramatic. Then my back started hurting a few months ago.
My metabolism too has tanked, and my skin is stretching and sagging in ways never seen before. And worst of all, I’m NOT as funny as I was a decade ago (in case that explains things) 😩
Seeing the “4” in my age reminds me that I’ve lived a long time. That I’ve been making this your last time for a long time, since I was 28.
And I’m not slowing down. In fact, I have plans to do even more.
It also means I’ve seen some things (in bar prep at least).
What matters? What’s noise? What are patterns, mistakes, traps, and breakthroughs that inevitably happen?
Some ideas have evolved as I spoke with thousands of bar takers, but most of what I believe about bar prep is what I believed when I first started writing about it. “How to bar prep” hasn’t changed.
To celebrate turning 40, my gift to you is 40 quick lessons about bar prep before the exam.
- Doing is the best form of thinking. Doing is less exhausting and more invigorating than sitting and absorbing. Don’t just stand there. Give it a try.
- Be a producer, not a consumer. Rules and issues that are shown to you are useless until you experience them yourself. That’s how you can learn how to wield them effectively.
- You’re not falling behind. You’re doing things that are wrong for you.
- Having a hard time memorizing? Learn by example, not by theory. It’s possible to have knowledge but lack judgment and understanding.
- Memorizing the rules is good. Memorizing the issues is better. Being able to recall and recite the issues and rules is best.
- Being familiar with something is not the same as being able to remember it.
- The past will guide your future. Prioritize issues and rules that have shown up before.
- Knowing something is not the same as being able to use it. You don’t learn to ride a bike by reading a book. If all you did was memorize some rule as a fact, your body has no clue what it needs to do with it.
- No issue = no IRAC = no points.
- Presentation is important. Decent writing is important. Make your writing easy to understand. Use simple sentences. Use paragraphs. If it’s hard to read, it’s not going to be easy to grade. Your graders are your clients. Give the graders as many reasons to give you points as possible.
- Use the facts in your essays. In fact, “plagiarize” the facts instead of paraphrasing only.
- Practice as if it were the real thing; do the real thing as if it were practice.
- Performance tests are more important than you think. But they are the simplest to prepare for.
- The most dangerous thing to avoid on the performance test is running out of time.
- Mental energy is at least as important as how much time you have. Your energy and attention are the true bottlenecks.
- The entire week is the exam. Prepare your mind. Attend to pre-exam logistics. And it’s not over until you submit your exam files (and send me your post-mortem thoughts).
- Don’t be afraid to redo the same practice essay or MBE question until you “get” it.
- Why are you trying to do the bare minimum? Push through the finish line. Why do less when you could do more?
- Don’t listen to subject predictions. I’ve never heard of anyone being glad they listened to predictions. How will you know if they’re right this time? You can’t control what questions you’ll see or which subjects you’ll get. You can control how you prioritize what you know will appear.
- There’s only a finite number of issues they can test you on.
- Track your MBE practice performance by subject and by smaller categories (like negligence and hearsay). You can find the low-hanging fruits that way.
- If you’re overwhelmed, go slow to go fast.
- Subtracting, not adding more, may be the answer.
- Burnout is real. Manage your mental and emotional stamina.
- Pick a few resources you trust, and use them.
- If you’re still using a bar review course, avoid focusing on catching up or completing tasks rather than actually learning something from it.
- Ask yourself: What will I wish I had been learning today? Am I doing something because I’m supposed to or because it’s helping me prepare?
- Always be aware of your weak areas so you can emphasize your efforts there.
- Success is boring, not sexy.
- You gain motivation by starting, not the other way around.
- When you’re in trouble, ignore the noise. Fight for simplicity.
- Progress, not perfection.
- “The mind is 50% of this exam.”
- Your efforts are not wasted. The bamboo shoots up in the last moment after years of watering. An overnight success takes months or years of work.
- Confidence is not what you’re looking for. Competence gives you a confident exam experience.
- Anxiety and excitement come from the same part of the brain. If you’re worried, use that as fuel for your next step.
- During the exam: Detach yourself from the end result (will I pass or fail). Trust in your preparation, “be arrogant,” and have fun. You have all the time to worry about results afterward.
- Not passing hurts more than struggling now.
- Your best now is enough, even if your future best will be better.
40. Be willing to reinvent yourself.
You are at a juncture.
What happens next week could change the course of your life. It could make 2026 the year you envisioned. Or it might have to wait until 2027.
Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”
To thrive, we require ongoing change, transformation, evolution.
Sometimes we’re forced into these junctures, and those are the best opportunities to bring about that transformation.
It may have been the hit-and-run accident last year that caused my back pain (I was not the hitter just FYI)…
BUT totaling and forcibly liquidating my 2009 Ford Escape finally got me to let it go and enjoy a new ride using the settlement fund.
I lost my in-house counsel job in January…
BUT now I can do what I’ve been saying I wanted to do for YEARS: Take MTYLT full time instead of keeping its potential suppressed as a side business. (It’s over for big bar prep! Is what I’d like to say lol)
It’s like a reverse monkey’s paw.
40 just so happened to be the perfect time to reinvent myself. I feel lighter than ever.
But this is only possible because I’ve been laying the foundation since I was 28. I also have a decade+ of work experience and a network (including you) to tap into should I ever need a job.
The ultimate security is the ability to obtain what you want in a world of impermanence. In the midst of corporate layoffs, I feel extremely fortunate to not even need a job. I just had to be forced into a situation to see it.
Have you been laying your foundation in the past few months?
It’s never too late to bring about transformation. It’s often in the last week that bar takers see the biggest changes.