Latest / The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers / She Made Her World Smaller and Smaller to Survive Law. Then She Found the Happy Lawyers. | Emily Long

Transcript

She Made Her World Smaller and Smaller to Survive Law. Then She Found the Happy Lawyers. | Emily Long · The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm so excited to have this conversation.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I think we talked about, I think when we first met, I was like, I'm gonna have to have you on the podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so here we are.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: And but I didn't know at the time for sure that we were also gonna be working together and like getting to know each other on various levels, which is which is so much fun, and is like the model that I'm after.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Usually I like starting with like why did you how did we get here starting with why did you even decide to go to law school at the very beginning?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, why did I decide to go to law school?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of those annoying kids that always wanted to go to law school.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I always knew it's what I wanted to do.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And my theory is two reasons.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: One, I read everything I could put my hands on.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: My librarian and I found out together at the same time the most books you could check out was a hundred.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would check out a full series of books at a time, and I had like a library tote that I would fill up with my books, and I just read everything.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a that was a big library.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I looked back on that library, it was a nice library.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think I read every book in there that was appropriate for my age level.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: And probably someone I'm not sure I've heard someone start a sentence with my librarian and I we were friends.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was her most loyal customer.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: How old were you at this stage?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like nine.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so by nine, you were like law school.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm saying.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's my point.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: How did you even have a sense of law school and lawyers at that point?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean a lot of it was, but I'm not sure how much I did knew about lawyers.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there wasn't anyone in my family.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the first lawyer, and I actually don't think there was anyone in my peer group whose parents were lawyers.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I always had a very strong sense of justice, like this is right, this is wrong.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And even if someone did something wrong, if the law itself or the rule itself was unjust, I would be okay with it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I was always like, what is the rule?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is the rule just?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is that just?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if something was unjust or unfair or unequitable, I wanted to fix it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that, like, to me, that's what lawyers did.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: LOL.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if I wanted to do that and keep doing that, I needed to become a lawyer.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get to read a lot.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just like a very natural path.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it just stayed like for my whole life.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: People would know me in middle school or high school as like, oh yeah, that's the girl that's gonna be a lawyer.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like very much part of my identity ingrained in who I was, and it it kind of propelled me forward very quickly because I knew that was the end goal.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I took all most of my college classes while I was still in high school.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I went to law school when I was 20, way too young, do not recommend.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like was able to start practicing law at 23, which is pretty crazy.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: When I look at other 23-year-olds, I'm like, I would not have hired me at 23.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's very young.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 20, it was my first time leaving home because I did all of my schooling while I was still in high school.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I moved out of state.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was really great.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I met great people.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I met really wonderful people, but also very jarring to be 20 in a very, very high-intensity academic setting in a new state without my family and friends.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: You had this sense of I'm gonna go to law school because I like to read and I'm pro-justice.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Did you have a sense of what you were gonna do with your law degree?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I would always picture myself in court.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like I would have like, I would work out scenarios in my head of like how I would argue that if I were a lawyer.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I really pictured myself in court, like in trial with the um like the Perry Mason, you you testified earlier, but this is what's true, like that kind of dramatic, you're wrong, that's unjust.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I, as I learned about law and my options, I really wanted to be a prosecutor.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that my first year out of law school, then COVID hit and everything shut down, and our courts shut down, and everything was over Zoom.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, having case calls over Zoom in a big district is chaos, is not the right word.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I saw stuff no no human should ever see.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like what people just turn their Zoom cameras on, doing laying in bed, shirtless, smoking, drinking, people on probation show up with alcohol bottles next to them.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Somehow I'm still amazed by this.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like the stories were coming out at the time, but that was it feels like an entire lifetime ago, and yeah, I'm I'm re-stunned.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think back, and it's like it's very entertaining now, and I'm also like it's par for the course of the course.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty much the same in court, too.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a little cleaner.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that was my goal to be in trial, be a good trial lawyer, wear the like really crisp suit, have a big leather designer bag, and like be that lawyer.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're picturing like the aesthetic around the whole thing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: I get that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so your first couple years, you're practicing mostly, I mean, early on virtually.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And how were you feeling everything was going?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: How did it how did it feel like to be a lawyer?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: That I feel like it it was a little bit of a blur of just survival because everything was so new, everything's so hard.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: This law school did not really prepare me for most of this.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it would.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the thing with prosecuting, which is so valuable and what I recommend to people if if they're interested in it, you you go to court day one from the moment you're sworn in, you're in court, and it teaches you really quickly to get over any fear of public speaking, fear of embarrassing yourself in public, fear of saying the wrong thing to the judge, fear of calling someone the wrong name.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you do so so many humiliating things so quickly, it becomes second nature to just like fall on your face in front of groups of people all the time.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: How did you feel about that at the outset?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not great.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's my least favorite thing.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Public public failure and public embarrassment.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I could not have chosen the a worse thing for me.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Although I'll keep going.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So no, although the the value of what I got and like the victims I worked with definitely outweighed the humiliation factor.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But there is I I have a friend that we started our first day together and we still talk about there's like two or three incredibly embarrassing moments that happened, and we still talk about it 10 years later, eight years later.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when you were in those early stages and you're just falling on your face all the time because that's just how it goes, how how are you navigating that emotionally?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not not well.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a oldest daughter, um, high achiever perfectionist.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I this is also the kid that told herself she was gonna be a lawyer when she was nine.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, of course, she's anxious.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely built up this um kind of like peaks of anxiety of okay, this is gonna be really embarrassing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: If it's really embarrassing, these people are gonna say something or do something.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And part of me got really used to like do it anyways, because you don't have a choice, but part of me started building up this louder and louder and louder level of anxiety because there was never really a break from the risk because you're in court every day.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's never like, okay, on Friday, Friday I can breathe because I won't be in court and I'll just be in my office and everything will be fine.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Never, there's never a day you're not in court, and if you're not in court, you're off, but being off of work doesn't necessarily mean you're not thinking about and stressing about work.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it definitely wasn't the best scenario emotionally.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I also think that goes back to my age because when I was 23, I didn't really know myself and I didn't know what I needed to do to cope with anxiety and to manage anxiety, to manage the perfectionism.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't even know really that I dealt with any of those things.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just like a lot of big feelings and a lot of embarrassing scenarios with a lot at stake.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're 23, you're navigating this fairly enormous career that you've been I mean, enormous in the sense that like you've been building up what it would look like since you were, let's say, nine.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not exactly what you envisioned.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's, I bet when you envisioned it, you didn't understand that it was gonna be so heavy, like in in your heart and your soul, and that you weren't gonna have the tools for that.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, as most of us discover after law school, that law school doesn't prepare you for the practice of law.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know that while you're going through, you think, oh, I'm going to law school, then I'll know how to be a lawyer.
• 10:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think so many people get out of law school and they're stunned at how alarmed they are that they don't know what to do, but they're at least for me, it was like, well, who do I can't tell anyone that I don't know what to do because I'm the only one?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: So when did you start understanding that what you were experiencing was anxiety?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And like, did you did your colleagues around you kind of seemed to be dealing with similar things?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: How did you understand that you were maybe dealing with something that not everyone was?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, in classic fashion in my life, it was because of reading.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I stumbled on kind of before people were talking about anxiety on social media and podcasts and writing about it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I stumbled upon an author who oh her name I cannot remember.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll remember.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about the neuroscience of anxiety.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I listened to an interview of her, it was on YouTube, just stumbled upon it, and she started talking about how you get this wave of a feeling when something doesn't feel right.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, does not everyone get that wave?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then she was explaining, like, and then you go into fight or flight.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Everyone does not always feel this way all the time.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And some people only feel this way when they're actually being chased by a lion.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that way when I like walk into a coffee shop.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So hearing someone talk about like the actual mechanics, like the body mechanics of anxiety, helped me realize, okay, one, not everyone feels this way, but two, it gave me a name.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the the only way I could have moved forward or like learned any type of coping mechanism was first learning, like, okay, this is what I am dealing with, and this is what I'm managing, instead of just assuming everyone feels this way all the time.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you start understanding this is anxiety.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: How so and how did how did understanding that then help you move through?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're a prosecutor for your first few years, and then you shifted into private practice.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: So talk about the private practice shift, what led to that, and also like the relationship with anxiety that you brought along.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I shifted out of prosecuting kind of when COVID hit its peak.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a law firm that I had interned with all through law school reached out to me, offered me a job.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: They were a bankruptcy firm, and with COVID, bankruptcies kind of went through the roof, which is one of the really sad side effects of COVID.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, wonderful law firm, probably the best lawyers I'll work with.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were also one of the rare set of lawyers that really, really loved what they were doing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were happy lawyers, they enjoyed it.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up shifting out of bankruptcy into another litigation firm just because of my like growth opportunities.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So year one and a half, I moved into bankruptcy, and then about a year and a half after that, I worked, I moved into like a true commercial litigation firm.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say anxiety came with me.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think the bankruptcy firm was really wonderful in a lot of ways.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was very peaceful.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even though you're in court and you're litigating and you're managing really high-value cases, it's very client forward.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I got into court, I felt like I was part of my client's business.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt like I was advocating for myself instead of advocating for a stranger that I didn't know.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a personal aspect and like an interpersonal aspect with bankruptcy that made it a little bit easier to manage anxiety because it wasn't so foreign.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: I knew what I was gonna say, I knew what was gonna happen in court, I knew my client really well, I cared about my client.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: If something went wrong, I would fix it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there was just a different like value exchange when I was in that law firm.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I also think I was just controlling my environment really well, which is a way to like mitigate and minimize anxiety.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So as much as I would like to think, oh, I was maybe starting to understand what was going on and manage and put things into my life that helped me manage, it was more control.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: What did that look like?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It looked like very, very tight control over when I get up, what do I do in the morning, what time do I get into the office, even what parking spot do I always park in?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the outfits that I always wear.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are the good shoes, the shoes if it's gonna rain.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: These are this, these are the three lunches that I always make.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of these three.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of control over every decision in my day.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I wouldn't have to think about, okay, so what am I gonna do next?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not what am I gonna do next?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, this is what's next, these are my options, and I would just select from my options, which is fine when you're young and you're single and you're working in a law firm that kind of lets you do your own thing, and nothing's happening in the world because it's fully shut down.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, how much of that do you feel because some of what you just described could be viewed as well, that's those are useful tools to manage decision fatigue because lawyers have to make a lot of decisions in a day.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Any high performer does, and I mean anyone does.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's just like days are complex, they're filled up.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I could imagine, you know, like there are people who just wear the same thing every day, or you know, they have their uniform.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, certain things like that, depending on you and your circumstances, that can either be a healthy decision or an unhealthy decision.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And part of one of the things I was thinking about when you were starting to describe this was, and I wondered if you were gonna can, you know, kind of give examples of of what it looked like if it would align with the following, which is like, were you making your world smaller?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I could make my world smaller just because I was in this circumstance of COVID, which which fingers crossed, we'll never be in again.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a a very abrupt way for me to learn how to control and make my world smaller upon learning I have anxiety, and then thinking, okay, I fixed it because I'm operating in the world this way.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have a great job.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing very much.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Inside of my box, I'm fine.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as nobody touches the box and the box doesn't move and the box doesn't change, and I don't breathe too hard, it'll be fine.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many people can relate to that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I I mean, even just the idea of making your world smaller, that came to me because there was a point in my life with my complex health history where I felt like, oh, I'm managing this okay.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not reacting to everything under the sun, I'm not getting so injured.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was a point where I realized, well, but I can't go anywhere.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: I can't leave the house.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not actually managing it so well.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've just made my world impossibly small.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's not actually a solution.
• 17:40
  unknown: Yes.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not the kind I'm looking for.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're proceeding on through this career, navigating different you know, practice areas and and struggling.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like kind of, I mean, I think you were you enjoy law.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's a I think, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good fit for your brain.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it it's I think the challenge for you then became well, how do I use my brain in a way that like lights it up and also makes me feel good?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of that is how do I also get myself out of this niche that I've accidentally built?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I recognize pretty quickly I am not designed for litigating.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like my body does not like this, my mind does not like this.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And also like my values and what I love in the world is not aligned with this point in the lawsuit.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some people who are very, very talented litigators, and you see them and you see the way they operate in the world, and it's very clear this is what they're made to do, and they're very, very good at it.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I fell more into the category of people where it just kind of happened.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at a certain point in your career, traditional law firms look at you and they say, Well, you're a litigator, that's what you do.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: The only recruiters who reach out to you are looking for litigators.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start talking to other law firms who don't litigate, they don't see the value.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand that I've been litigating.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that the steps you're taking now lead to a lawsuit.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: It actually makes me better at the transactional side of law, but a lot of transactional, traditional law firms don't recognize that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also competing with other attorneys who've been practicing in a transactional field for years.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm effectively moving myself back down to being a first-year law out of law school.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's a fair.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I think maybe I don't think that's a fair comparison because someone who's first year they have no experience.
• 19:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: In our in our um silly model.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just the way that we kind of, you know, we decide, well, this is the chronology based on having kicked off these boxes.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, maybe, but that's short-sighted.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe you have some skills to develop over here, whereas someone who's been doing that kind of work for longer would have learned that earlier on in their career.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: But you've got all these other skills that you learn from your litigation experience.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the more well-rounded growth mindset-oriented uh people that you want to be engaging with are gonna see that, and and frankly, it's the case for anybody, regardless of where you're coming from.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And people talk about this, you know, if you're even if you're you know staying within litigation or you're staying in in transactional or whatever it is, but you're changing practice groups, like we should all be able to evolve.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you're you're taking what you've learned from one area and you're applying it to another.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's as as frightening as people find it to be, and I have also found it frightening.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's so normal.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Most of us do it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's also true.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of crazy to me how much we how impossible we make it seem to do it when the reality is that I think it's probably a vast majority of the profession who goes through some version of that kind of transition.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in hindsight, I think it makes you a better lawyer because you have a wider range of knowledge and you understand the implication of things.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the more conversations I have with people, now that I'm not um trapped, people say that a lot.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I thought this was my plan.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did it for three years, I hated it, I completely pivoted, or people I'm talking to are like, I'm 10 years in, I'm pivoting again.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Absolutely, this is normal.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember very early on in my career, I had found myself my way to um someone who'd been practicing, I mean, for decades.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember him telling me his story about you know, he practiced for a couple decades, let's call it two.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And got to a point where he realized he was just absolutely miserable.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And he started going on informational interviews and identifying what about the work that I've been doing do I actually like and am I good at?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: What do I want to do?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: What energizes me?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And what about the work that I've been doing makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so he he did end up taking, you know, a little bit, uh sort of a temporary career back step and then quickly move forward.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it was in order to eventually build the you know the rest of his career and life the way he wanted to, and then turned out quite happy.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I I that even when I was still afraid of like, how am I gonna do this?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think I don't like what I'm doing, but I've been doing it, so how am I gonna do a different thing?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Am I allowed to?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I sure technically allowed to, but how how?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: But how?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so just having that example in the back of my mind was helpful.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're practicing, you just you start recognizing that you feel trapped.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: What what does that mean?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: What what did it feel like to be trapped?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: What how did you understand that you were in the wrong environment?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is a hard question because I feel like I kind of started having life happen to me instead of like making decisions for the life I wanted.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I it was almost like I woke up one day and I was thinking about what I needed to do in my day.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had this feeling of like almost like disassociating, where I was looking at myself and my life, and I was like, I'm not sure that I know who you are, and I'm not sure that you know who you are, and I know for a fact you're really miserable and unhappy.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I could see like a pattern of me like trying to fix little things in my life, like, oh, if I fix my diet, then my mental health will feel better, or if I start working out consistently, my mental health would feel better, and I would do these things, and I still have these patterns in my life because they help me, but I wouldn't get better, and I was like waiting for the next thing to get better, and all the while my life was just happening to me.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a friend of mine recommended a book, it's called Again, My Life Books, uh, Build a Life You Love.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the first time I heard a woman say, because men say it very easily, sorry, men, like, do what you want, just go for it, do what you want.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the first time I heard a woman say very clearly, like, map out the person that you want to be, take away all the actual aspects of your life today, map out the person you want to be, move backwards and do it.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out how to get there and just do it.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have to uproot your entire life, do it now.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait for 10 years.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uproot your life and do it because you're gonna stay in this path and be this person forever until you die, or you can just do it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And like a little side effect of that was there were two very sudden deaths in my life.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: One was personal, one was professional.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I had started thinking about this pattern in my life of I was having the question a lot, do I want, am I gonna regret this on my deathbed?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw two people pass away near me way earlier than there they should have.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of was a I have to do something type of moment where I knew I I couldn't stay.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then it took me about two years to figure out what to do.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: But there was very much a like a light switch went on, and I felt like I was in a fog for a long time, just practicing law, doing the things, doing the life, having the life.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I always wanted, this is what everyone said, but I was in a fog, and then one day a switch flipped and I had to change it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so when that switch flipped, what did it flip to?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anything but this, literally anything but this.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm wondering.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I considered primarily leaving law because to me, the like root of most of my misery and like this inner turmoil of like this isn't who I am, this isn't right for me, seemed to be rooted in law.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought about becoming a teacher.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I thought about going back to school, I thought about maybe I want to get into like therapy or counseling.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I really thought about a lot of things outside of law.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started thinking about okay, but I have this degree, and I actually really loved being a lawyer at first, and also this is my kind of an identity, and it's too much of an identity crisis to think about leaving law right now.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So then I started talking to lawyers everywhere and looking around to see who are the happy lawyers, who are the unhappy lawyers.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in my little world, there were only unhappy lawyers, miserable, unhappy, didn't like their decisions, kind people, like genuine people, they just didn't, they weren't happy with the way their career went.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of like, okay, I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna do that, you're unhappy, I'm not gonna do that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of whittled down to there was a very consistent theme of like the personal injury attorneys who live in very nice houses on the water, very happy.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: But they all run their own firms, so they all run either like two or three-person firms, or they started a firm and ended up selling it.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a pattern of not necessarily you're practicing an area of law you love, but you're you have a lot of control over your time, your ability to grow and your flexibility.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that pattern, I could see that in like criminal defense law, and um sometimes in family law, and I think it's because those areas of law tend to attract more solos or boutique firms.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it started me on this path of unfortunately, I guess I have to go out on my own.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: I remember, oh, go ahead.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no, keep going.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I remember when we first spoke.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I probably asked you, you know, why?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: What made you decide to go out on your own?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And your answer was something like, I was miserable and didn't know what else to do.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It really truly at the end of the day felt like my only choice.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a Hail Mary of like, I'll try this, I'll give it my best shot, I'll pour my heart and soul into it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if I hate it, I'll know.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can leave law and I'll know that I did the right thing.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never have to wonder, should I have tried it?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: How did you first start finding the happy lawyers?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And like, how did he meet Megan?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we talked about that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know because Megan, my connection with Megan on LinkedIn was my like first.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: For those listening, by the way, Megan Senise and everyone should follow her.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: She's an amazing business development um person for lawyers, and she and she does it in the most authentic way.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so anyone who wants to, you know, figure out how to do biz dev and live an authentic life.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you should know her.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Anyways, so you don't know how you met her.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually think I heard her interviewed on a podcast and I cold emailed her from my personal email account because I still didn't have a business email account at that point.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she very kindly got on a call with me for one hour and was like, you can do this.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen people do it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You are equipped to do this.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know LinkedIn is scary.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just start by liking and commenting, and it's gonna be okay.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then she connected me to you.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: She connected me to a few other attorneys, and literally, like Megan is the catalyst.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: My connection and conversation with her literally opened the door to this whole world I didn't know existed.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: I this is why I mean what Megan's also been on the podcast, and one of the things that I've talked about probably on a few episodes is that there are so many of us.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I didn't know.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when you said to me, and I know you've now posted about it too, like you've when you discover that there is this group of, as you described it, secretly happy or this secret group of happy lawyers.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it's true.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, everyone's at different phases, and what everyone's looking for is different.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: But there really is this growing group of happy lawyers that are figuring out how to do it in ways that really suit us.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there are they're we're not small in numbers, we just are relatively quiet.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the elements that I'm really excited about with the podcast is to build out this enormous community so that everyone sees, like, oh, actually, we're not in the minority.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: There are more of us that want to be happy lawyers, by the way, and and are figuring out how to build those lives and practices.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And my mantra is happy lawyers do better work.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's true.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as a happy lawyer, like I've always been a good lawyer.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that comfortably because this is the path I've chosen.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Me as a happy lawyer doesn't even compare.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like what I thought was wonderful when I was practicing now is like you could have done better.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a really powerful acknowledgement, especially because I mean, most of us in this profession, you know, struggle with our relationship with perfectionism.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've gone, you know, most of my spent as a maladaptive perfectionist where I had a very much, you know, very much the mindset of I made a mistake, therefore I'm an idiot.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been through a lot of work, moved into an adaptive perfectionist, you know, mindset, or that's what I have now most of the time.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so I it feels like a really hard thing to be able to possibly to be able to even acknowledge, oh, I don't think I was actually doing my best work then.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because that then means that you didn't do a perfect job.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And to acknowledge now, oh, I'm happy now, so I'm doing better work.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, happiness matters for the quality of my work, my performance, my sustainable performance.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then recognizing what that actually meant for when you were miserable, which so many people go through.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's also like it was a a mindset shift in almost like a um motivation shift where when I was practicing in the more corporate um law firm setting, I I didn't want to get fired.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my decisions were based on fear of getting fired.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't want to make a client mad, I didn't want to mess something up, I didn't want to file the wrong thing, I didn't want to say the wrong thing in court because I needed my job.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now my motivation is I want my client to have the best experience they can have while working with a lawyer, which is not always a fun thing.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want to give them the highest quality of work and expertise that I can give them.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when that's my motivation, the answers to the questions are different and the way we make decisions are different.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal at the end of representation is different because it's no longer just I don't want to mess up.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's how how do we thrive?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you how do we get your business to the point of thriving and you as the business owner to the point of thriving instead of just don't get fired?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: I love how you explained that.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is that so your business model is also similar to mine, which of course we've done a lot of talking about, and in a nutshell, it's we're anti-billable hour.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we're pro the more innovative versions with different forms of flat fees and subscriptions, and now we're experimenting with points.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: So when you think about what you just described around like your motivation for your client, is I want you to be so thrilled with this experience, and I want to help you build whatever it is that you're building or navigate, you know, with with how do we do this the best way we possibly can, as opposed to like, how do I just not get in trouble?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: So how does that kind of get incorporated into your business model around fees?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question around fees.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I, as a business owner, when I make decisions, I want to know how much something is gonna cost.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And with every decision I make as a business owner, I know I know what my monthly lease is, I know what my average gas cost is, I know what it generally costs for me to hire paralegal for 10 hours a month.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I can make business decisions knowing those costs are coming down the pipe.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with the traditional billable hour is it makes hiring an attorney very unpredictable.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does is it cuts out a lot of a client base that needs a good lawyer, has the needs for a good lawyer, and actually can afford a good lawyer, but doesn't have the margin to risk getting a$10,000 bill at the end of the month that they weren't expecting and they can't pay.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody wants to be on the wrong side of a lawyer, so you don't want to not pay your lawyer.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people just don't hire a lawyer until they literally do not have the choice or until they really feel like they can afford it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And generally, that puts you five to seven years down the road, and by then you've already made a dozen decisions that are impacting your daily life that could potentially result in a lawsuit, and are probably lowering your ability to do your job really well.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: So having flat fee, having the ability to tell my client this is gonna cost X amount of dollars, allows my clients to make more educated decisions and it allows clients that maybe think they couldn't hire a good lawyer.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: It helps them realize, oh, I can hire a good lawyer, and I'm gonna be able to anticipate the costs, and I can continue working with this person if I like them.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you launched recently.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: How does it feel?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I okay, this is dramatic, and I I've told a few people this, and every time I say it, I'm like, this is really dramatic.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like my life went from being like black and white to color again.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I am seeing the whole world as like good again, and I'm like feeling these little feelings of happiness again that I didn't realize I wasn't feeling, um, at least with my practice.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I like it's hard.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've made more decisions in the last six weeks than I've made in my entire life.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there are parts of my brain I didn't know existed that like hurt because I'm using so many parts of my brain at the same time.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like comparing what if I do this, then what?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I can do this, but then this will happen.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the this client wants this, but I actually think that what they need is this.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if they do this, then what does that mean for this?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a lot of it's a lot of decisions, it's a lot of hard questions, but I love it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I never want to go back.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that this is the choice that was made for me.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also like, I feel very grateful that even though I made this choice, kicking and screaming and kind of like angry, like, is this really my only choice?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't not that we deserve anything, but I don't deserve having made my decision with those feelings to have like so much joy in it.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm even more grateful that even though my original decision making was very flawed and angry, the result is a lot of joy, and that I love being a lawyer again.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I would agree that your decision making process was flawed.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mean it got you to where you needed to go.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, and like what is a flawed decision?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, like what you didn't have like a perfect pro-cons list?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you didn't go through like a whole analysis, you know.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think you were miserable, and you did my interpretation is you were miserable, you were miserable, miserable for a long time, and you did your research in talking to as many attorneys as you could find to try to understand which ones are happy, how can I do this differently?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you just reached your limit, you decided to try it yourself.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: What about that as flawed?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this tells you so much about the way so many of our brains work.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think, especially at the outset of like in this early launch phase, when you're still transitioning out of your like older mindset.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so that a well-researched decision can feel insufficient and flawed.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I call I'm still undoing my law firm brain.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about that.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I are you comfortable talking about that?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, fantastic.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: One of so you have your own firm and you're also working with me, which is delightful and I'm thrilled because it's the help that I need and it's wonderful.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I we're working and it's fun for me.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's fun.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I get such a I didn't know how much fun I was going to have with well, when I first launched, I was like, I'm it's just it's gonna be just me.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm keeping it small, solo, that's it.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband laughed.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then it as like the best kind of problem you can have, like my firms.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: The way I would think about it is like my firm grew without me on like doing anything on purpose.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wasn't like, let's grow.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: It just it became to like I was bringing more clients that I could manage, and somehow some months I was totally fine with the bandwidth, and other months I was like, I'm okay.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: I need help.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: And and I was trying to figure out how to navigate that and if I even wanted it to grow.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because at first I really thought I didn't, but then I realized that a big part of why for a while I continued to think that I didn't want to grow was because I was afraid of not knowing everything and not having everything be like organized in perfect systems, and I didn't want to bring on anyone to my team and have them see that I am not perfect and that like I'm still figuring out what I'm doing because everything, you know, I get to a point where I feel like, ah, I know how I'm doing this, and then things grow and evolve, and then I'm like, ooh, I gotta shift things again.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was this recognition of, but then people will see.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, and because I I've been in the position, as so many of us have, of being in a firm and not liking how things are run and feeling like, well, this is sloppy or disorganized and inefficient and whatever.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it was so frustrating for me as you know, the employee, I didn't want to do that to anybody.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I was afraid of you know, not having all of my ducks in a row and then bringing somebody in.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: But also I then eventually discovered that you can't actually create the systems without having like more you like it all kind of goes hand in hand and you just have to like jump in and get comfortable.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um so, anyways, I also really I didn't feel like I was gonna have the bandwidth to train, teach, anything like that.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I but what I'm and I'm not a natural delegator, but I'm learning to do it, and it's actually fun.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you make it really easy because you're good at stuff.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um but so, anyways, this is all like a long way of saying one of the things that I loved very early on when we started working together was you had given me an update and you were just giving me a heads up about um and a draft of what you were gonna send the client for their client update.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I responded and was like, this basically looks great.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have a couple thoughts about language, and I made some adjustments and I also said in there, like, I'm really not trying to micromanage your words, you do not have to speak like me.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just this is how I would think about it and how I try to, you know, nav, you know, communicate with clients.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you were like, Oh, please, please, please give me the corrections.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is great because I'm trying to undo my big lot training.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then I realized how much fun I can have with sharing with you how I've learned to develop my own voice, because that's now what you're working on.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I a lot of that I feel like goes back to the motivation when you're working for someone versus when you're on your own, because a lot of the big law training is don't get sued, don't get, don't mess up.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you mess up, don't get sued.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the communication, even if we're communicating the same end goal of like, here are your three best options, this is what we think you should do.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: The style is different.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because in my training, my communication would have been here's two paragraphs for option one, here's two paragraphs for option two, here's seven paragraphs for option three.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want you to come back and tell my boss, your associate, Didn't tell me about this little piece of case law that could potentially result in this not working.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those things are still true.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: But first of all, that never happened.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And second of all, my clients don't need to know that because they've come to me now because they trust me, they trust my judgment, they trust my expertise.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if something is gray or unclear, I'll tell them that.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is your option, this is the risk.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the value of working with me personally and knowing your attorney personally, same for you, is you understand, like, okay, this particular client is okay with a lot of risk.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can give them riskier options, telling them like there's some higher risk there.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that they're willing to take on more risk.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can give them more options.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to give them an essay to explain it.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this client over here is very, very low risk.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that these three options they will never take.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll put them on the table, but I won't over-explain them because we both know they're not going to take it because there's way too much risk.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it allows me, and what I'm learning from you is to communicate less, to protect myself and to like prevent a future lawsuit and more from the standpoint of like, what are my clients' goals?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does my client need from me?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what are their best options moving forward?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings my seven-page memos down to like five sentences, which is also a time saver.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's always a time saver because I think sometimes well, because it actually takes it's what's the Mark Twain quote around, you know, I I didn't have a lot of time, so it, you know, so this is longer.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so it actually takes a lot of thought and training and retraining to be able to just like chop that into something succinct, recognizing, well, what what does a client actually need to hear?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: And how am I actually going to be able to best help them?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: So what are you finding to be the most uncomfortable part so far about running your practice and just being on your own?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually thinking about that this morning because this is my first podcast.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Very scary.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, you're doing Ariella.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I filmed like a little video.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have a friend who owns who runs a very cool Instagram account.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Stories of St.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Pete.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she talks to local people and she'll make like seven to ten minute videos.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I filmed a video with her yesterday, and I had like I had a flashback to the level of discomfort I would feel when I was walking into a deposition I didn't want to take, or about to walk into arguing emotion in front of a judge that was very complex.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get very uncomfortable when I was doing those things.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: And most of it was like anxiety because I was afraid of failing.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about the discomfort I'm feeling doing these new foreign things, like being on a video on camera talking about my life and having a friend like show all of my peers, like, here's the story of why I started Long Legal.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's very uncomfortable, but it's not the same kind of discomfort.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like the discomfort of what I'm doing with Long Legal, I would say literally everything is uncomfortable.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing comfortable except that it's for me, and it's for something I really love and something I'm really passionate about.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when I find myself like being dragged down by the everything is new, everything is uncomfortable, everything is hard, there's a little bit of friction that goes into everything.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'll have a conversation with a client that I love and they'll ask me a hard question and we'll work it out together.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to the end of that call, and I'm like, all of that discomfort is worth this conversation with this client.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that discomfort is worth it because it's my brand and it's something I love and something I'm passionate about.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: But at least in this particular season, everything is uncomfortable.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I was gonna say, are you comfortable?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Or are you willing to uh talk about how you're doing in terms of your anxiety in this period of time?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: I so I thought, okay, when I quit my job, it's gonna be like a weight is lifted off my shoulders, and I'm gonna be a new, fresh self that doesn't have anxiety, as though we can just remove anxiety.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there was there's a definite like I woke up and I didn't have to work in a job that was no longer aligned with who I was feeling.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that feeling was good.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: The anxiety didn't get go away.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And like since being in law school and since leaving the bankruptcy firm, I've learned what like non-negotiables I need to have in my life in order to function well.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I view my law firm now and what my law firm gives me is I have more margin for the non-negotiables.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if I don't sleep well, I don't book anything before 10 a.m.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of days I don't book anything before noon.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if I need to get another two hours of sleep, I can.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if I wake up bright and early, I have a lot of very good set-apart brain time where I can do hard work and then I get on my calls in the afternoon.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like my firm allows me to build a schedule that is fluid and flexible and works with me and also works with my best focus time and when I get the most tired, and how many calls can I handle in one day?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives me more margin to manage my anxiety and make decisions to maybe help my day go better if I'm feeling especially anxious or if there is a high anxiety event coming up.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's more like I view it as a river.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not like in a concrete maze anymore.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a river and I can move things around, I can adjust things, and I have control over it now, it being my schedule.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that level of I mean, we talked earlier about you know, all the control that you were creating that was keeping you in a box, but this kind of control is different.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's control mixed with flexibility and control control with flexibility in mind.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I do a similar thing with my schedule.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I have my hours when I'm available to have calls, I have my hours when I like want no one to talk to me.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's my focus time.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, so like for me, being really clear just with myself for starters around like this is my dedicated time to be uninterrupted so that I'm not task switching, that's what allows me to do my best work.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: What other boundaries or guardrails are you putting in place to protect your energy?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my barometer is my husband, and he tends to notice before I do.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll say things like, maybe you should go on a walk, or how's your schedule tomorrow?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very gently.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: And usually that's my trigger of like, okay, we're we're outside of my low grade home and something is making this peak.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an evaluation of that like June was a very hard month for me.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it was because of some like interpersonal stuff that was happening, but looking back, it's very clear it's because I completely packed my schedule out and I've learned I have a max of two hours of talking to two other people a day.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I can have four half an hour calls or I can have two one-hour calls.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I went into Calendly and I built that into my calendar.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: So now if you get a booking link, even if I'm open between one and four, or if there's calls between 10 and 12, those times are blocked now.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like learning as I go, okay, when I do this, my anxiety will peak.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: So how do I avoid doing that?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or how do I put a parameter in place if it's unavoidable to be prepared for an anxiety peak if it happens?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: How's that feeling?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: It I I'm constantly astounded that I can be like, you know what?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna clear my calendar.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can clear my calendar on a Friday and go to the beach in the morning and then go for a run and then walk my dogs and like do things that bring me down to like, okay, we're back, we're back to just low grade, low level, even, and not constantly, constantly, constantly going up and down, up and down, up and down.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I it's it's empowering, but also still very stunning.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can I can cancel this call for no reason except that I don't want to do it.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: The power in being in in being able, genuinely being able to just decide what's good for you and what's not, and deciding is are these networking calls actually getting me where I need to go or not?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And if not, like I don't have to have them.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are these the clients that I actually want?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: If they're not good for me, they don't have to be my clients.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the power to just be able to say, This is how I want my my days to go, my week to go, and my life to go.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Your life to go, and it's really entirely up to you, it makes such an enormous difference.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lovely.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: Anything else that you would like to share that we haven't covered?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the only other thing, which everyone knows if they're listening to this, is I just want to acknowledge how wonderful you are and what a great person you have been in my life.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: I really I was telling a friend the other day, like, I can't believe that a random connection on LinkedIn brought me not only like a friend in you, but also someone who lives really what they're preaching.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've seen the way you practice, I've seen the way you run your firm behind the scenes, and it's really wonderful.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's entirely true to who you are.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a breath of fresh air, me coming from the ugly world of law to work with a very successful attorney who is very, very good at what they do and is happy and does a very good job of balancing this is your life, this is your work, your work is not your life.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you show up really well as a human?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make you a better human?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I love working with you, and it's an honor.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's so nice.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I okay, part of my brain was like, oh, that's a great ending.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's stop there.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm I it's I it's um I'm also I'm getting much better at taking compliments, so thank you for that.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm practicing.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's also it's really meaningful to take that in because I'm also a human and I also get insecure.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I also wonder, like, how's this going?
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: Am I am I like, you know, am I nailing it exactly?
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: And when I'm not, how do I adjust?
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I I'm also, you know, I'm a few steps ahead of you, but I'm always, you know, I'm feeling like I'm constantly like comfortably still figuring it out because things evolve.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I really want my law firm to feel so good and to be the model of what a law firm can be.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the really exciting things about actually growing the firm beyond me is like then it really turns into a model because it's not just me anymore.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: And when we start to show, like, look, and it can get bigger and we can like practice law really well and do it and have fun and even be friends with the people we're working with, and it can feel good, and we can tell each other our boundaries, and we can talk about when we're freaking out about something, and we can recognize when we've made a mistake and what to do about it.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I shared with you recently, I had drafted a mistakes policy for the firm, and I kind of want to talk about that before we go because I've never seen that before.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'd had the idea a number of months ago and I'd started drafting it and then put it aside.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I came back to it recently because the firm is growing, and because we all make mistakes, yeah, no one wants to.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: We try really hard to have zero mistakes, it's not possible.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually had a lot of fun drafting this mistakes policy because it can change.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if every firm had a mistakes policy that acknowledged, like mine does, that mistakes will happen.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bummer.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: And but it doesn't mean you're stupid and it doesn't mean you suck.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: It means that there's something for us to learn.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so my view of mistakes is okay, so they're gonna happen when they happen.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: What do we need to understand about that?
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe the mistake happened because you actually overworked yourself and you're out of bandwidth, and we need to understand how we got there so that it doesn't happen again or we avoid it as much as possible.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it happened because we're stretching ourselves and we're doing something new.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the way you learn, and I mean the way our brains truly learn, like neuroplasticity-wise, is from making mistakes.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, yeah, it's not pleasant, but we actually have to make mistakes to learn.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, whether it's happening because of something where it really was avoidable, in which case, okay, do we need a checklist system?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do we need what what kind of system do we put in place to avoid that particular mistake from happening again?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, not every mistake is going to be truly avoidable.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: But regardless, how do we together as a team approach it comfortably and everyone feels safe about it?
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: And no one feels like they have to hide it or like they have to, you know, hide themselves.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and then you can just go on.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: So when I said that to you, yeah, what were your thoughts?
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it, and I I still love it.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm ever in the position where I'm hiring people, I will do the same thing.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing I thought of when you sent it to me is again, this is dramatic.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a dramatic person, that's okay.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: This creates emotional safety because as a boss and as a manager, you are you are creating an emotional environment, and you can have a good emotional environment that's not safe.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you create a safe emotional environment, you're going to attract the type of people that value that.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you're also going to build in parameters for things that are going to happen.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you say, the mistakes are going to happen.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've already built this safe emotional box around making mistakes, again, it makes you a better lawyer because you catch the mistakes faster.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your employees don't have to hide their mistakes, your employees don't have to like go throw up because they're so scared of what's going to happen because they've made a mistake.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your employees don't have to make suspicious under-the-table calls to clients to like fix the problem before their boss finds out.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many scenarios in a typical law firm setting where associates are trying to fix a mistake so they don't get fired because there's no emotional safety.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's no way for them to learn.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also not an opportunity for a boss to say this is normal, this happens all the time.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: I did this when I was an associate, I did this yesterday.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a big deal, this is how we fix it, which is how you get better as an attorney.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't ever have the opportunity to say that, you don't get better.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, absolutely.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that because mistakes are so taboo, if you will, we're just not allowed to make them.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, we don't have the opportunity to learn how to make mistakes well and to recover from mistakes well.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: If we can't even acknowledge that the the error happened, we can't respond well to it.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some mistakes are just no big deal at all.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you just say, whoops, and sometimes the client needs to know, sometimes they don't need to know.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's such a spectrum, but learning how to respond to them tactily, uh, or tact tact, what am I trying to say?
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tactally, fully, tactfully, tactily.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: I like tactily.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: That didn't sound right.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and emotionally is is so critical.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: And like just to so we have to learn how to do that and feel safe.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: We and you can't do that if you don't feel safe in your environment.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine a world where, and I think with I mean, this goes back to like just the idea of you know, when lawyers realize they're in the practice area.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think so much of the fear around how do you do the next thing, how do I get out of this is well, I don't know how to do the other thing.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna make so many mistakes and I'm afraid to.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_02: If people weren't so afraid to, maybe it would be easier for people to go out and try different things and you know, just dip their toes into different types of law to see what's a good fit.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the mistake can be the best thing that happens with a client because you show them like your human side and you have a moment to like prove show to a client that I don't just say I operate with integrity, I actually do operate integrity, and this is how we handle mistakes.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: So not only is it like an internal emotional safety thing, it's also an opportunity to show your clients that you this is actually who you are, and this is actually how you practice law.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just marketing.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you said that.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you made me think of in medicine, um, and I imagine there are studies around this with law too, but I I know that in medicine, like it's understood that physicians who have bedside manner and or good bedside manner and have better relationships with their patients are less likely to be sued for malpractice.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: And doctors also make mistakes.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: But when you're kind and you acknowledge an error and you're really trying so hard, even if the error is not so great, and obviously this depends on the details.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but uh, you know, it's gonna the same rule applies with law.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: No one again wants to be, we try so hard to not make the mistakes, but the clients pick up on how hard we're trying.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: And when we have a real connection and we have a relationship.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll, you know, I I made a really, really tiny, like just annoying in error of um a few months ago.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like a super, super no big deal thing.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like uh in drafting, and I was just moving too fast.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I told my client, I was like, you know what, I moved too fast on this, and I just I shouldn't have sent this draft over what I should have put it down for the day.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: And her response was, this is really not a big deal.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: And also, like, please don't be so hard on yourself.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're working so hard and you do such good work for us, like, chill out.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Right.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it was also, you know, it for me, and it was an acknowledgement of okay, if I have built up my practice in such a way that like when this thing, which isn't a big deal, but just because it's not a big deal doesn't mean you don't handle it appropriately.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: When that happens, when the client says, Yeah, okay, like it's fine, like go rest, please.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm I'm building the way I want to.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm building, yeah, I'm building up the right kind of clients that I want that are kind and thoughtful and see me as a human.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: And where I can say, oops, bummer.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and it's not a big deal, and then I can just go to sleep.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if a client is really unhappy with a minor mistake, maybe you're not a good match, and that also is a good indicator.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: It absolutely is.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: I once heard someone say I I love the way they commented on how to run their practice in terms of very intentionally repelling the wrong clients.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Self-selection.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: And we all, I think, in order for a lawyer to be healthy and build a sustainable, healthy, good feeling practice, they have to know for sh, like, you know, and this can shift over time, but they have to know what feels good for them to do and what kind of people and businesses they want to work with.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't mean that, like, if they don't want to work with a business or a client, that like that business is innately bad.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: It could just be about personality, fit or not fit.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that's fine.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to know for yourself, like you knew you're not you're not meant to litigate.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't align with who you are, your constitution and your values.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it also is really hard to run your own practice.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easier to just have someone else hand you cases and make decisions for you and do your marketing for you and do your bookkeeping for you and grow the firm for you.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna do the hard work, you might as well also work with clients that you really like.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_02: You get to like your clients.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's an option.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and to have clients who treat you with respect.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when when things don't go well, you also have the choice to handle a gentle breakup or a gentle firing the way you want to, with integrity and empathy, and kindness.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: So both sides of the coin, you have an ability to operate in the world the way you you feel is right instead of having to do what someone else told you to do.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this is how we become happy lawyers.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: And happy lawyers do better work.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: Happy lawyers do better work.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is fun.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: We could talk, I could talk to you until we could for another four hours.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are there other things to cover?
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we have covered everything.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_02: We have definitely not covered everything, but I think we have covered it enough for today.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoyed.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: Please be sure to check out the links in the show notes and to rate and subscribe the podcast.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you have a wonderful day and please remember to be kind to yourself.