Chris Pavlak 2: Episode 1147

Transcript

[00:00:34] HA: My next guest shows how failing might be considered an opportunity to willfully and courageously confront the chaos of life. The intensity of Marine officer training, and the privilege of leading Marines, ultimately helped recalibrate the vision of his life. Welcome to the Author Hour Podcast. I'm your host, Hussein Al-Baiaty. I'm joined by author Chris Pavlak, who's here to talk about his new book, From Lawyer to Warrior. Let's flip through it. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. I'm with my friend, Chris Pavlak. Chris, welcome to the show today. I appreciate you coming on.

[00:01:16] Chris Pavlak 2: Hey, Hussein. Glad to be here. Thank you for everything. This is great.

[00:01:18] HA: Yeah, man. Congrats on becoming an author and launching your new book, From Lawyer to Warrior. I'm really excited to talk about it, but before we get into the book and the nitty-gritty of your story, I want to give our audience a little bit of a personal background. If you will go back in time a little bit, share some of that childhood where you grew up, perhaps, and maybe like if you can share about a person or an event that eventually led you on the path that you're on now. I'd love to get the highlights of that if you will.

[00:01:47] Chris Pavlak 2: Sure. Yeah. I’m originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, born and raised. I’ve come from a large Roman Catholic family. I have eight siblings. I'm one of nine kids. My parents are saints like, talk about selflessness and sacrifice. They were great role models for that. I'm thinking about this, as I reflect on someone or something that may have pushed me in a certain direction. There was an impetus, and I've mentioned this in the first part of my book, growing up in such a large family just seeing the effort, and the time, and the work that it takes to raise a family. I thought I'm going to do it differently. All due respect to my mom and dad, right, but neither one of them were like, what you might call a professional or had a professional degree, right? They were both blue-collar workers. They raised nine kids on those salaries. I thought I'm going to do it differently. I began to get – and this is what I talk about in the first part of my book, which is I got fixated, I think, on the wrong reasons to go to law school. I know that might not answer your question because that seems like maybe a negative thing, but it was growing up in a family like that that I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to pursue the comfortable suburban life in America, right? That's why I went to law school. It was for that singular reason. I thought, well, maybe I'll like the other items that are in the law. Maybe I'll enjoy the pursuit of it, or I'll enjoy the research and the reading and the writing and things like that, but really what I was fixated on was making money. I admit that that's probably the wrong motive to go to law school. I do mention that in my book. I'm like, “This is the wrong reason to be here.”

[00:03:28] HA: But it's the awareness to recognize that, though, too. As we grow, of course, our desires change. I think for me, man. I came from poverty, too. I grow up in a refugee camp. I grew up in the United States where I thought literally everyone drove a Lamborghini, which you have to do to come – like when you live here, especially with an immigrant background like my parents didn't get – my dad worked for an architect, but like, he was like his apprentice for 15 years. You know what I mean? So to technically no degree, but like the idea is you are in a place where you have endless opportunity. If you don't take advantage of that like, I'm going to kick your ass. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's so much.

[00:04:10] Chris Pavlak 2: I had to put the work in and do what I could to get good grades and undergrad, and that was on me like, the cost of undergrad was on me, making it through undergrad was on me. There was no one going to come and save me. Then likewise, I said, I'm going to go pursue a graduate degree. I chose like I mentioned, I chose the law, and I had to seize the opportunities in front of me. Yeah, so I don't want to forget about that. That's a good point. It's a good thing to keep perspective of, which is I don't want to sound as if I made all the wrong decisions because I did have the opportunities to go to school and pursue a graduate education in America, no less.

[00:04:44] HA: So powerful. You go through school, but then you start having this shift, something that starts to come along and say, “You know what? I don't know if this path is for me.” So take me there. What happens next?

[00:04:56] Chris Pavlak 2: Halfway through law school, law school is a three-year program. I'm in school and I'm thinking, what do I want to do with this, and what I want to be? I still had this financial ascendancy front of mine. I didn't have the grades necessary that were going to get me into a competitive job. So I thought like of a backdoor, so to speak, into the practice of law, which is in the Jag Corps, in the military, right? Because I learned that in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, they do a baptism by fire, so to speak, with their attorneys where you get amazing experience that a first-year associate would not get. You get a lot of autonomy, and you're doing some dynamic things, and you're doing interesting casework. I thought, “Okay, that's going to be my backdoor into the trajectory to get into a large law firm later on.” This is all due respect to the other services, the Army, Navy, and Air Force, but I decided if I was ever going to join the military, I was going to be a Marine. That's just my own prerogative. My dad, he was in the Air Force Reserves and his father and then his brother, so my uncle and my grandfather. They were in the Navy themselves. I thought if I'm ever going to join the military, it's going to be the Marine Corps, because I wanted to be part of the best. I want to be associated with the best. That's what appealed to me. I approached the Marine Corps about being a lawyer. This is where things began to – the fork in the road began to emerge, because the gentleman I spoke to, who's basically a recruiter. Selection officer is what we call him. He said, “Listen, we have a full quota already. Like, our quota for lawyers is full with people who are on your timeline. Unfortunately, there is no demand from headquarters Marine Corps from a manpower perspective, there is no demand. You'll have to make a decision. You can walk away from the Marine Corps and just continue to pursue the law as a civilian or you could join as a ground contract and maybe put the law on hold for a while and go that route.” I thought about things and as I got feedback from other Marines and some men I had met at school. I really started weighing on me. I think I want to do this Marine thing no matter what. I think so, but I'm not sure. Well, then the nail in the coffin, Hussein was, I didn't pass the bar exam. That's really where my book begins, is because it was such a devastating setback. It wasn't something I was prepared for. Again, given the financial fixation I was on with pursuing law for lack of better words like ambushed by this failure. I really didn't know what to do. My life was just one enormous setback that I don't know if I was going to be able to recover from. I picked myself up by the bootstraps, so to speak. I took it a second time. I failed the bar a second time. Then I was like really, really devastated. I'm like, “I got to do something.” So, because I'd had these conversations with the Marine Corps, I said, “You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to go and be a Marine.” I really didn't have many options. I was looking at about $150,000 in debt. I really had no employment options as a lawyer. I had to do something because I was in this quagmire of emotion and humiliation and shame.

[00:08:08] HA: Man, that's so intense. When those kinds of situations happen, it really forces us to make, I feel like a decision and probably a decision that we probably almost have always wanted to do, but never really had the courage to do it, perhaps, or never really had the will or the support or all kinds of different things come into play. I think when a decision needs to happen, because of your back is against the wall, you really need to do something. So what happened with you? What is that thing that you decided to do? Take us a little bit forward in that story.

[00:08:42] Chris Pavlak 2: Yeah. I get my results that I failed a second time in April of 2007. That was it. I said, “I'm joining the Marine Corps.” Luckily, I'd already had that iron in the fire for a while. So I just went and told the OSO, this officer selection officer. I'm like, “When can I go? I got to get the hell out of here. I'm ready to sign the contract as a ground officer.” So that's what I did. I left for Officer Candidates School in June of 2007, which is in Quantico. That was 10 weeks of intensive training. That's where they decide if you have the potential to be a Marine officer, right? It's like a screening process. It's just as intense as boot camp is for the Marine Corps. They emphasize different things, but that really set me on that trajectory. It definitely was a pivotal moment. It was a summer I'm never going to forget, but then that began my time as a Marine officer. Then after that, and I don't want to get two in the weeds for the listeners when it comes to the matriculation of a Marine officer, but we have to do what's called a six-month course called the Basic School. After Officer Candidates School, all Marine officers, whether you're a pilot, a lawyer, or a ground officer, we all go to the basic school, which is also in Quantico. That's where you learn like the finer points of infantry, the basic tactics of infantry. How to command a rifle platoon? You’ll learn about logistics. You’ll learn about some admin, there's leadership evaluations, there's physical fitness, the whole curriculum based on evaluating the lieutenant for their potential. Then at the end of that six months, you are assigned a specialty, a military occupational specialty. Then you go to those schools and then you get to the fleet. There is a heavy investment the Marine Corps puts on its officer corps for good reason. When I went through, I got, the ground intelligence MOS, the specialty for ground Intel. That set me onto that pipeline for training, which then I went to infantry officer course. That in my book, I mentioned is probably the most impactful moment of perhaps my life to be honest. I had 18 months before this like I mentioned. I was at the nadir of my, I was just at the bottom of, I don't want to say my life, but it felt that way, right? I was really – I had nowhere to go. This low point where I really started doubting myself, I started doubting my own abilities, I had no confidence. I was just full of shame and humiliation. 18 months later, I'm graduating from infantry officer course. One of the most difficult courses in the entire Marine Corps with some amazing colleagues and peers and it was just a whole 180-degree difference on how I looked at the world. I'll stop there for some questions and whatnot, but that's where, that's the trajectory that really just did take me in a different direction.

[00:11:41] HA: It’s so powerful. Again, what happens when that decision needs to be made and you actually go in being like, “Okay, this is it.” Like this mentality of just I'm going to go all in on this. It's already been there. That seed was planted. I think it just needed a place to grow. I think obviously the Marine Corps and that experience help you shape, I don't want to say a new identity, but the next layer of your identity.

[00:12:06] Chris Pavlak 2: No, it certainly was. Yeah, it certainly was. One of the themes of my book is I would have never experienced this amazing, if you want to call it transformation or I would have never experienced these things had I not failed. What I've tried to convey throughout the book is just the opportunity that failure presents. If we can look at it as an opportunity rather than this devastating setback and I know it's hard, believe me. It took me a long time to see it that way. It was part of the reason I wrote the book was to help myself make sense of these things. When I finally did make sense of them over several years of pen to paper, I realized, you know what? “I would have never had these amazing experiences had I not failed in the first place.” You're right. That potential is always there in front of us. It's just how do we perceive failure and how do we think about it? We often don't think of it as we certainly don't think of it as positive, right? We hide it. We don't broadcast it. No one posts these things on social media, right? So we hide these things and keep them to ourselves for a good reason, but I tried to articulate a way to think about failure as an opportunity.

[00:13:22] HA: I think failing is one of those things that I don't know when, and where, and how. It's like a negative thing. It has such a negative connotation like you don't ever want to fail. You want to be perfect. It's like, well what the – like everything we do, we're going to fail at. Like to some degree.

[00:13:43] Chris Pavlak 2: This is what's so bizarre. I mean, I thought about this and what I thought about the value proposition of my book like people said, “Well, who's your audience?” I had to think about that. I'm like, “Well, wait a minute here.” I did think about in my research, I learned about men who had committed suicide after they failed the bar exam. So I immediately thought, okay, those people are in my audience like, this book is for them, right? As I open the aperture a little bit, I'm like, “Wait, failure is a common denominator among humanity.” I mean, we all have done big or small, and maybe even repeatedly big failures have affected us. So I thought I don't want to sound coy, but it's for everybody. I mean, this happens to anybody, right?

[00:14:25] HA: Life and its lessons, right? It will continually repeat certain lessons to teach it to you in different ways, too. It's like, it’s not just the same issue can come in a different perspective and you now have to grow another layer of like resilience, and like growing through it, and understanding it. It takes a while, right? It takes a lot of wisdom and experience to be able to reflect back and realize your awareness of like, “Man, had that not happened, I wouldn't be aware of that.” Right? That sucks, but for me like, I think about this all the time. Like, that refugee camp sucked. Like, there's no part of it, especially because I was a little kid. But –

[00:15:05] Chris Pavlak 2: What was that like for you? Like that must have been –

[00:15:08] HA: Oh, man. I mean, like again, like I was a little kid. I was blessed and my mom and dad and my brothers and siblings were all there, but like, it was horrendous. People killed themselves – I mean, it was terrible, right? It was vicious, but at the same time looking back now, realizing where I am with you today, the blessings, the work, and all the things. Like, man, had that not happened, I wouldn't be here. So that's just as simple as it's like, the idea for me and I feel a lot of people is like, how do you move on? It's not really the moving on. I think it's just accepting it. Accepting that it happened to you for a reason and that reason may be still unfolding, right?

[00:15:46] Chris Pavlak 2: Exactly.

[00:15:46] HA: For many people like –

[00:15:48] Chris Pavlak 2: See it. I don't know if it's our 21st-century in patients or just the human condition is that we don't have the patients to wait for the reason, right? We want the reason right now. In the very first page, I summarized the theme of my book, which is you might have to live into the answer. Life is asking you questions that only you can answer, right? I could only answer life's questions with my life. I could only respond to its questions by doing something with my life in response to the questions it was asking, right? I would have to basically, in a way, hope and be patient about how I'm living into those answers. This book, oddly, I know. I thought maybe this is the reason I failed, so I could write this book. I could help others who are in the same situation because back in 2006, there was no book, there was no podcast. I didn't really find a good community to talk to. Again, because we don't share these shameful events, we don't share these failures. So we keep it to ourselves in isolation.

[00:16:51] HA: Yeah. How do we grow? How do we learn? How do we connect with to get that advice that all those good things? Lucky for us now, the internet and being able to write and being more open. I feel like our culture has begun as shift towards more vulnerability. Though I feel like, we still need a lot of work in that place, but that's fine. We're making a shift in these types of book, your story, of course. Add to that layer, right? Add to the openness of things. Add to, it's okay. Reach out. Get help. Find something else to read. Get positive. Think about your life differently. All these things are beautiful. When we can add to that conversation, I always felt like a lot of people are like, “Why are you writing? There's so many books.” It's like, “Why do you listen to music? There's so much music.” You know what I mean? Like, it's like everything else. Every human being has something unique to bring to the table. No, you're not the first or last human being to be in the Marines or to fail the bar, but you have your unique experience on how those kinds of things actually made you realize your own life and where you can lead it. That sounds profound, man. I got to ask you this, what was your favorite part of pulling the book together? What did you learn from that journey?

[00:18:00] Chris Pavlak 2: Well, like I said, that's a good question, like I mentioned a little bit ago. I began writing to help me, help myself make sense of these things. The ideas, the feelings, they were so entangled and just multi-layered and complex that I needed writing to help myself do my thinking. It's one thing to have a conversation about it. I know podcasts like this, radio shows, therapy, all those things are valuable and they are, but I don't think you're really going to have ownership of it, until you can put it into complete sentences one after the next and really get clear on what you're thinking and what you're feeling. That's the reason I began putting pen to paper. It was a therapeutic process in the beginning for me. That was one of those things where it took a little while and I realized maybe there is a narrative here that I could share, maybe there's a larger thing I could share with people. That was about, it took about five years and it was getting up early in the morning before work, putting pen to paper, keeping a journal and sidebar here. Another great thing of value I found was a gratitude journal. That also helped crystallize the things when I was looking for and the things I needed to derive meaning from that was extremely helpful. Slowly put it together, not necessarily chronologically. I'm also old-fashioned. I hand-wrote everything first. Then I typed it up. Then after that, the editing began, right? It was like several iterations of editing before I even brought it to Scribe. I mean, it was a lot of different things that I was doing just on my own to organize, to recalibrate, and rearrange. It was a process. I'll tell you that. It was a process. I kept it close and I read Stephen King's On Writing. Once I began doing this more diligently. I read his book On Writing, really good book. I think it's actually his most popular seller of all things. It's his book on writing. One of the things he says is, “Do not share it with anybody.” Do not share drafts with your friends, until the draft can stand on its own because everyone's going to have an opinion. Everyone's going to give you feedback. They're going to give you all different kinds of rudder steers and tell you to do this, not do that. I didn't do that very much to begin with, not until I was comfortable with what I had written that I thought was going to be strong enough on its own and could withstand some scrutiny from friends or family, right? Then I finally shared it with only a close few like, I'm talking like one or two people and just wanted their feedback on some things in like, my message, my tone. I learned a lot about the writing process. I mean, as anyone would, I guess, about how to go about this. Methods that work, don't work. One small thing I'll mention is that when I was working, I had a long commute. So I thought, I want to use this time on the road is a lot of time. I got a Dictaphone. I actually just activated a Dictaphone app on my phone. I talked into it when I had a good idea. Then I come home and I type up those notes from my Dictaphone, so things like that.

[00:21:07] HA: Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's taking advantage of not only that time, but also of like the opportunity to stay diligent, right? Stay consistent, just commit to it and stay close to it. I think for me, man. There's been plenty of times where I'm like, I go on walks or whatever. I think my favorite app on my phone is my notes app, right? I have just endless notes, but I love it, because the moment something strikes, I know exactly where to go, I know exactly what to punch in. It's funny, because usually I feel like inspiration or that idea or that spark usually comes when you're having a shower, when you're on a stroll, when you're at the park playing with the dog, it's when you're actually really relaxed and in the moment of just woo sign. I think that when that comes to you, it's such a – just have something around you where you can capture that moment. For you I've done voice memos, of course, and it's so powerful, but you're right, man. Like staying close to the writing is so crucial. I love that you shared that. Thank you.

[00:22:07] Chris Pavlak 2: Lastly on that, I mean, maybe having for you too, what I had to account for was the fact that even though my book wasn't done yet, the progress I was making and the sense I was making from the writing process was changing me, right? I wasn't the same person I was when I began and I had to account for that change. I had to basically make sure that the message was going to be one coherent message from the same person, even though the writing process was changing my perspective.

[00:22:40] HA: Oh man, it definitely happened for me. I mean, I wrote a memoir about my whole journey of coming here and all that good stuff. Man, I think for me, just put in place where everything needed to be and reorganized, my thoughts around it, it helped me become more concise about when I go do share, I do speaking events and workshops and stuff. So when I go share my story and anything like that, I know what points are very emotional so I can pull on those when I need to be. I know where points where we're like, whoa, that's inspiring or motivating or whatever. So like, I was able to navigate and I just basically, and it's like you said. You unfold the entire thing and really put the pieces in a place where you understand where they go. That gives you just a level of clarity, appreciation, and reflection that honestly, not many people have, especially ones that are helping others navigate certain hard things, right? So it's like if I'm thinking suicidal thoughts about leaving or having failed at something, the person that would, I feel like would really help me come out of that or at least see a different perspective is like, “Dude, I've been there. I know what that's like,” That's the person that I feel like would reach me deeply. I mean, maybe that's a bad example, but I don't mean to offend anyone, but my idea is like, those are the people we want to connect with is the ones that have gone through those similar experiences and they can help us at least get emotionally in touch or we can start to logically put things together. I think we have to go through the emotions first. Then the logic kicks in, of course. But if you can help someone do that with your story, with your book, with a podcast episode. I think that's really powerful, man.

[00:24:17] Chris Pavlak 2: That's what I realized. I realized as much as this process was helpful to me. That's what I set out to do was again, a therapeutic process for myself. I realized, wait a minute, this may be helpful to others and I hope I can help others. I hope in fact, today is the 24th of February, next Tuesday, Wednesday, because it happens around the country the same days in February, the same days in July. The bar exam is offered in every jurisdiction on the same days, the last Tuesday, Wednesday of February, and the last Tuesday, Wednesday of July. I'm not sure if all of the listeners here if they have relatives who are studying for that thing. It's one of those things where I think, okay, I don't want to be a bad omen. I hope everyone's going to pass and I'm sure everyone's going to do well, but if you don't, like call me, email me, right? It's okay. You're going to get through it. I hope if like talk to me or pick up my book and just understand that I've been there. I've been in the real, real quagmire of these terrible emotions. I worked through it and I've written about it to help others.

[00:25:22] HA: It’s so powerful. Chris, man, I want to thank you for sharing your stories and your experiences with me today. I really appreciate our conversation. I think our audience definitely certainly will. I know – I don't know, man. I feel like, there's at least one family member and most families at this point that the relatives are in the military, or in the service, or they're in the doctor, lawyer, engineer department, and they may not be wanting to do that thing. I know it happens a lot, especially in immigrant families. This idea that we don't have to stick to these older traditions and thinking about who we can become. We can pave our new ways in different ways. So very powerful, man. I'm very moved. The book is called From Lawyer to Warrior: Failing the Bar, Becoming a Marine, and Finding Meaning. Besides checking out the book, where can people find you?

[00:26:12] Chris Pavlak 2: Oh, thank you, Hussein. This has been great. Thank you so much for your time today, thrilled to be here. You can find me at fromlawyertowarrior.com. I also have a Facebook page, Lawyer to Warrior. I'm available there. Again, reach out. You can buy the book on Amazon. My website, Lawyer to Warrior, will take you to the Amazon website to purchase it. Yeah, if I can help others in their journey, that's what it's here for.

[00:26:37] HA: Well, congrats again on that launch of your book, my friend. I wish you the best of luck and I'll be in touch soon.

[00:26:42] Chris Pavlak 2: Thank you so much.

[00:26:42] HA: Yeah. Thank you all so much for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find From Lawyer to Warrior: Failing the Bar, Becoming a Marine, and Finding Meaning, right now on Amazon. For more Author Hour episodes, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Same place, different author.