Latest / The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers / Why So Many Successful Lawyers Feel Like Nothing Inside: David Sazant on Self-Worth and Identity

Transcript

Why So Many Successful Lawyers Feel Like Nothing Inside: David Sazant on Self-Worth and Identity · The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's so nice to chat with you.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's nice to talk to you too.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've been waiting a long time.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I actually I don't remember when Sean connected us, but he uh I'll believe him whenever he says you should chat with this person, and he felt very strongly about you.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Yep, I buy it.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's fantastic.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he got he and I go back a long time.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's a lovely person.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: So you were buddies during law school, and uh is that right?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: You went to school together.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And did you at that time did either of you have the sense that, like, what did you think your career might look like then?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or what you thought success was gonna look like at that point?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Such a good question.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the first day of law school where we had these different, you know, we were going to our classes as usual, but it was the first day, and it was really like an orientation to each class.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in one of my classes, we were asked by the professor to write down on a piece of paper ideally what we would use our law degree for.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, almost like an exercise of it's the first day of this adventure for you.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, let's kind of measure your self-awareness.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let's measure what you think you want to do.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that day I wrote down entertainment lawyer.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be a lawyer for people in film, in TV, in theater.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted to do.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to do that because I had come from the performing world growing up.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up doing musical theater, film, TV, I was a part of that world.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I left that world and thought, maybe a little naively, that if I'm a lawyer and if I come from the acting world originally, I am destined for a career in entertainment law.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there are so many reasons why that just isn't a thing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but that's what I thought I wanted to do at the beginning.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it'd be interesting if I I don't remember being asked that specific question on, you know, day one or orientation of like, what do you think this is gonna look like?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: I also thought I knew what I was gonna do, and and uh that's a whole that's its own longer story.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: What did you think you wanted to do?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, I wanted to fix healthcare.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: I did not go to law school specifically envisioning or expecting that I would practice law.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I went to law school because my dad died when I was 17.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: And when I went to college, a lot of if I wasn't in class and studying, I was doing something related to the American Cancer Society.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I ran everything that was, you know, on campus with colleges against cancer and relay for life and raising tons of money and um doing advocacy and grassroots, you know, that was my world.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And part of what came through that experience and the grieving process through that was also the recognition of how fortunate my family had been in that we lived in Connecticut, which is close to New York, where my dad was able to see the number one colon cancer specialist in the world.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there were all these elements around access and resources.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we we weren't, you know, again, we lived in Connecticut.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we we it was it was a manageable trip to get in there.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: We had the kinds of, you know, friends who had the kinds of jobs where they could take off and drive my parents into the city when he had treatments.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was able to not work, not because we were loaded, but just because of, you know, certain, you know, we she was able to to not work so she could fight with the insurance companies every day.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and win.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's you know, take care of it.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it was all this stuff around access and resources.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought, well, what about someone else who had the same diagnosis on paper?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, my dad lived about four years longer than anyone would have expected, and and than would have really likely been possible without those access and resources that we had.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought, well, that seems not fair.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna, and also my twin sister and I have a really complex health history.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, now I never thought I'd be as healthy as I am now, but that contributed to my awareness of like, what's up with this health system that we have where people don't get the care that they need and it's wildly expensive.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And even if the care is available, you can't pay for it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And anyways, it's a mess.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just thought, well, I've had this life now.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have to fix this system because people shouldn't suffer.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I now know.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to do something about it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to law school thinking, again, that I'll fix the healthcare system, not even really understanding what that might look like more specifically.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's all these, you know, additional layers.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: But it, but you know, the part that I think is interesting for a lot of us to think about is like how much do we know ourselves at these stages of life, these especially early stages of life, when we don't even know ourselves that well, we don't know what's involved in the world, and we're making these enormous life decisions around what are we gonna do, you know, thinking, oh, it's for the rest of our lives.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we don't we don't know enough.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think it can be really hard to recognize later on, ooh, you know what?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Either I didn't know enough then and I made a wrong decision, or I knew enough at that time, and now I'm just a different person.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do something else.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: So to think about, you know, these different stages of life when you're making these huge decisions for yourself, and what did you even know?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then to be able to look back and recognize, oh wow, I either really knew myself well or oh, I did not at all.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what what turned you into a different direction.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: What made the pivot?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, so this at some point I'm gonna interview you.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had uh a few pivots in different ways.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: One pivot, I suppose, or one additional layer was when I got to law school, I in that three-year period of time, I started to learn about enough.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I mentioned I have this complex health history.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: It had always been complex, it got more complex.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: I started law school, and in that first year I was diagnosed with um what at the time was thought to be a rare disorder.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's not rare, it's just rarely diagnosed, and it's called mast cell activation syndrome.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Effectively, it means that you we all have mast cells, they're an immune cell, and they're uh responsible for allergic reactions.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Anything in the body can go right and anything in the body can also go wrong.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: When you have this condition, MCAS, your mast cells are reacting as if there's an allergic reaction to things that you're not actually truly allergic to.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I, for many, many years, including before law school, which only then that I was diagnosed, was having these insane allergic reactions to like truly everything under the sun, including at times the sun.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Huh.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot of blacking out.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: There was, I mean, I had seen all from that, from that disorder and from other diagnoses.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, imagine having symptoms in pretty much every organ system of the body.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's tricky.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that led me to start during law school to pay attention differently to food and drugs because they drugs and prescription drugs and supplements and a lot of things that someone else might find safe and no big deal, including a food, including foods that someone might think, like, oh, who's the healthy foods, could set me off in a really serious reaction.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I started paying a lot of attention to that and learning about um regulations around those sorts of things and incipients and drugs, those extra little, you know, ingredients that most people have no awareness of.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: But once you get diagnosed with something like that, you become very keenly aware because it might be the reason that you're passed out or having, you know, a crazy hive explosion.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I started becoming very aware of the FDA space and the regulations around supplements, in particular and drugs.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and also, and because I apparently have a part of my personality that is drawn to uh fixing problems when I recognize that something is not going well and that it's hurting people, myself included.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, recognized these issues that were not actually keeping patients like myself safe.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, okay, I'll also fix what's going on in the FDA space.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I started out my career in the FDA policy world and liked parts of it, also got fed up with parts of it, um, especially the political side of policy, really didn't enjoy particular activities where you know it sort of felt like, okay, we're all in agreement that this is important for patient care.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now you're holding this, what you know, sometimes it was legislation or whatever it was, effectively hostage because you want to get something, so you're gonna just hurt people in the meantime because it does, and I just so that among other things, it just wasn't a good fit.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and was just, you know, I I think as we'll also get into with your story, was starting to learn about my own set of learn about pay attention differently to my values and what was important to me and what about the choices I was making really felt right and what didn't.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I got my sixth concussion in 2018.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried, and the the concussions were related to these health uh challenges, one of which being a connective tissue disorder called Ellers Danlow syndrome, which is uh if you think about how important it is for a building, for it's a building structure to be sturdy, same thing with a body, someone with Ellers Danlow syndrome, um specifically the type that I have of hypermobility, our structure is not sturdy.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that can lead literally everything in the body to not work optimally and to have a lot of systems kind of um struggle in many ways.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I experienced that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is part of what led to a lot of the concussions, probably all the concussions, but other things involved as well.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and when I got this concussion, I tried to push through it for a month because my identity, my identity was wrapped up in being a person who could push through anything.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And if I couldn't do that, who was I?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And after I determined, I determined a doctor really made it clear that I was making myself a whole lot worse.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, that that's also what led ultimately to the wellness that's why I was I I ended up taking time off.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because it forced me to start getting bored again and to ask myself questions about like, why did I go to law school again?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, right, that's what I wanted to do, and this is what success looks like, and what do I want right now, and what do I want my life to look like, and all these kinds of questions.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And anyways, those kinds of questions led me to learn better how to make those pivots intentionally and how to design the kind of career in life that I want, which is now what I'm living as a physical nomad traveling around the world with my husband and mostly working from the beach.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I could ask you a million more questions, but I feel like maybe now's not the time.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe another time we can swap roles and you can interview me.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I do and I appreciate it also, and it's fun.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I do want to chat with you about your story.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: So let's back up a little bit and tell me a little bit more about so you you grew up as you know, someone interested in the entertainment world.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I um, you know, I saw one of your posts around uh having one of the hardest feedback that you got was you you look, you want to explain this?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you could be referring to an audition that I went on when I was around 16.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was for a it was for a play.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um they were casting a two-person play.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was for a theater festival.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the play, long story short, is basically about two people who run into each other very, very late at night in the Toronto subway.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you find out a little bit later on that they know each other and that there's tension between them, and things get a little bit um uh uh the stakes uh climb uh throughout the course of the play.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the climax of the play is the confrontation between these two men.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was 16, so these two guys on the subway late at night.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: This confrontation finally happens, and my character is supposed to come off very remorseful, very apologetic for the things that he find out that he did to this other person uh some years ago.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the audition was that confrontation, and I put everything into that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the the people who were auditioning me were sitting maybe a foot or two away from me, and and it was uh it was a pretty emotional room.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then I found out I got the part, so yay.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: But then I found out that they gave it to me because I came off really inauthentic, and it looked like I was putting on a show or a performance for the other character, and that was not at all my intention.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it was this weird.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they thought that I was really smart.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I felt that this was the biggest backhanded compliment, where it's kind of like, oh, they see me as a fake.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was that was tough for me to swallow when I was 16.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the the reason that I I I'm glad that I saw that post because it ties for me, it ties so well together to your trajectory that I know about so far, which is in a nutshell, and then we'll get back to the details, is you ended up going to law school, you practiced a litigator for a little bit, and it wasn't feeling right for a number of reasons.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: And now you are a therapist, in large part for lawyers.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And part of what led you to the work that you do now was a realization of like this isn't feeling authentic.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so there were things that you were doing in the way you were showing up for so many years without knowing it, of like, this isn't me.
• 16:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think so many, not I think, I know so many of us have that feeling show up in different aspects of our lives and our careers.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of us then you know believe that, oh, it's just us, we're alone in that.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And yet it's it's so pervasive.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So go ahead.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It makes us feel incredibly alone.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but to your point, so many people wrestle with this.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would almost even dare say the majority of us wrestle with this.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the weird irony behind it all is that this is the thing.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: This and so many other things actually bind us.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: They make us feel connection if we're just honest about it, but they make us feel incredibly alone because we look out at others and we say, oh, they seem perfectly aligned with what they do.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: They seem happy.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one that's not happy.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's something wrong with me.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the shame that comes upon that, the secrecy that they we that we choose to keep, um, you know, our deep unhappiness, unfulfillment with the with the work that we're doing.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it took me a little while to reflect on the fact that it wasn't law itself.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm actually quite interested in the law, because I still work full-time in that space, and we could talk about that in a bit.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was litigation that I that I uh left.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just found that every day I was either acting as a sword or a shield.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if I wasn't engaged in conflict with other people, I wasn't really doing my job as well as other people would want me to.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that was really kind of wearing me down over time because uh uh it's not what I value.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So walk me through initially just your decision to go to law school in the first place, given that your background wasn't really showing that you were actually super interested in it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was, let's go all the way back.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was telling people when I was eight for whatever reason that I was going to be a heart surgeon.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows, who knows why?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was maybe a value that, you know, I wanted to be a doctor.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got to high school and I realized halfway through, oh, I hate physics.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I hate chemistry.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to med school.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I applied to universities for sciences, got in for sciences, changed my mind at the very last minute.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go to this school, but I need to instead do a BA.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do a Bachelor of Arts.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to go for sciences, so that's what I'm gonna end up doing.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to university and I majored in psychology.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I graduated and I was bitten by the professional acting bug, maybe for a second time.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just I was doing commercials and I was doing, you know, the odd movie, and I was doing the odd TV show.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then it got to a point where now I'm in my mid-20s and I'm not getting these parts really anymore.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of like, okay, I have to do something.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have to do something.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to medical school.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's been ruled out.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like I need to go back to school to do something.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I bought the LSAT book prep book and I bought the GMAT prep book for the for my MBA.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I went through both books and I said, the GMAT has a math component.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do math.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the only deciding factor as far as why I decided to go to law school.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And wrote the LSAT way too many times, didn't get into law schools the first time around.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Second time around, I got in, I went.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It always kind of felt like it was someone else's life.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I landed in Canada.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: We article.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you article in the US?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: We don't.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a student lawyer for a year, landed in litigation, um, and then litigated for, let's say, six years after.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: It always kind of felt like I was pushing a square block through a circular hole.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe one more year, one more year, it'll feel like me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: It'll feel like me.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it never felt like me.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it started to wear me down over time.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I hired a career counselor that specialized in working with lawyers.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately in our first session, I knew I was either going to be a therapist or a coach.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I chose the therapy route.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, long story short, it's already long.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I opened uh a men's therapy clinic called Pursuit Counseling and Therapy.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Many of my clients are Ontario-based lawyers, um, other professionals, and I have other therapists on staff that work with similar people.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: But during the day, I still work in the legal profession, and I I quite enjoy that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the therapy piece, um, the therapy piece is what I was missing.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: What were you while you were still litigating?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think you were starting to understand that the There were things also about the way you were showing up at work and also at home, at as it kind of relates to what we were talking about earlier with the inauthenticity.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: What were you feeling?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: What were you noticing?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: What do you understand now in hindsight with all this extra knowledge that you've gained and perspective?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Ariella, so many things.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing that kind of tipped me off was really in hindsight.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: For about five years, I would get home from work every day without fail.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I would, we could read between the lines here, but I would like to numb myself out.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Before things were legalized in Canada, you know, we could put those two and two together.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be on my couch.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would do the thing.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would get takeout and watch Brooklyn 9-9 for the rest of the night.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I convinced myself into thinking this'll let me sleep well.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can chill, my job is stressful.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but really what I came to learn later was I was wiping the slate clean from living a day that was completely misaligned with my values, um, in some ways, my skill sets, and really kind of just went against my very sense of identity.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: What am I good at?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: What can I bring to the table to help people around me?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like the way I was practicing law, what I was choosing to do, was not in alignment with any of that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was showing up in different ways.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Had you ever given any thought to what your values were and what your identity was?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, yes and no.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did think about it, but I was completely off the mark.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: So at the time, I'm litigating, and I'm thinking, I don't like this, but it's because I'm it's because of litigation, or it's because of what I'm litigating.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am meant to be an entertainment lawyer.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: I should be an entertainment lawyer.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was knocking on the doors of every entertainment law firm in the city, and it just wasn't working.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was thinking about my identity likely in the wrong way.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like I had really not sat down with the intention of being really honest with myself.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: What am I actually good at here?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: What have I always been really good at here?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: What are my real skills?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: What would my friends know me for?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: What would my family know me for?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: What do I bring to the table in a way that others might not be able to?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was completely overlooking meaningful connection, allowing people to feel safe and comfortable, to get out what it is that could be bothering them.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And bits of that were showing up in my legal practice.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Mediation was the best part of my role.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting my best results at mediation, where I was able to have meaningful connection with my client, with the other side, where we can connect as people.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't putting two and two together.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a little slow on the uptake there.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a minute.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started working with this career coach who immediately out the gate started asking me questions that I had never really asked myself seriously.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew right away, oh, oh, I have to be a therapist.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: I often wonder if lawyers and law students were given more guidance at the beginning of their career and also throughout to understand all of the options within law because there are so many.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's actually kind of mind-boggling how many ways there are to be in law.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: If more people would actually stay in the industry and be happier, I don't think everyone should be a lawyer.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: It does not have to be the right thing for everyone.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: I also think being a lawyer, a practicing lawyer can be exactly the right thing for you for a stretch of time.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then it is no longer totally fine.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many ways that you can be in or out, or partly in and partly out.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: No biggie.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I do wonder if we just offered the guidance of like this is what the more of a sense of what the options are, and let's help you understand you.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Would you be more inclined to actually find a place inside the law that was fulfilling and that would allow you to feel in your case like you're able to really have those meaningful connections?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think if someone had guided you earlier that you might have found a different direction that could feel good?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's possible.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: They might be the voices of their parents or their friends or acquaintances that they haven't seen or spoken to in 15 years.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: But that encouragement, I think, is completely necessary, both in law school.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're already here.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about what a legal career can do for you and mean for you.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I think in the law school prep stage, someone is studying for their LSAT.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it would be helpful while they're studying for their LSAT to get insight and visibility into their own value system.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, why are you looking for a legal career?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about law school that you feel is going to achieve your dreams?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are so, so, so many people, as you know, who become lawyers and then leave the profession.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because of a lack of insight into what law school is, what being a lawyer is, and who they really are.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my that's my take on that.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: You launched a clinic for men.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Why focus on men?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Two reasons.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started as a student therapist, for some reason, the people who were coming into my calendar, because it's the clinic's job to fill my schedule, most of these people happened to be men.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I started having a lot of conversations with similar themes.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I started feeling comfortable there.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Second, you know, there's this adage about therapy and coaching that your ideal client is yourself.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have loved to have that type of connection with a relatively young professional who had insight into mental wellness, knowing which questions to ask and why, I would have loved to have that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if I could, with the insight I now have, be that person for other people that I might have been in their shoes five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago, um, that felt right to me as far as um how I wanted to impart a little piece of me on people asking similar questions.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: When your patients, uh, and the lawyers in particular, but I know you work with other high-performing professionals come to you.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a set of common challenges that they're coming with?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, like the things that they're even afraid to say out loud privately to you.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm asking, because you know, you know, in our industry, we we have we so many of us feel like, oh, it's just me, as we talked about.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it feels so shameful and it feels so just unacceptable.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of the point of this podcast is for everyone to understand if you think it's just you, I assure you, you are incorrect.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're all having these same kinds of yikes, feelings, and experiences, even though our personal details vary.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the two types of clients I have, and they're all really one type, but uh, the two categories I have generally are male lawyers in Ontario and all my other clients.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's I categorize them that way because my lawyer clients have really similar types of presenting challenges, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um burnout being one of them, just exhaustion all the time, but also debilitating fear and insecurity.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: So always feeling the need to satisfy and please whether it's their superiors, whether it's clients, whether it's the need to be perceived as a real expert in the field where deep down they feel like nothing at all, completely nothing.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm letting my clients down, I'm letting my family down at home because I'm always in my inbox, I'm always working.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a lot of low self-esteem, high anxiety, rumination, um, feelings of never really able to let go of work, but also never feeling like I'm doing a good job.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So those are my lawyer clients.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know all about that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: With my other clients that show up, maybe it's professional-related issues, maybe it's not.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: But what I also see a lot of is anger.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of anger, and what we generally get to the bottom of pretty quickly is anger is really just the other side of the coin related to not feeling good enough, anxiety, low self-esteem, because anger is a motivating emotion.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit more easier to tolerate anger, for example, than it is the I'm not good enough, I can't handle the threat that life is throwing my way.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the mind, sometimes without our consent, kicks us into anger mode.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: So low self-esteem and anger are generally the uh the issues.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that shows up in a bunch of different ways, a big way being lack of confidence in decision making.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's that's interesting that you say that with the decision making in particular, because I'm a woman.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm more in tune personally with the experience of being a woman.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the reading that I've done, and actually one of the podcasts that we just um released, we were talking about that a lot of women in particular struggle, at least from one perspective, and in some ways more than men, with making decisions.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: That sometimes men might climb the ladder faster and more easily because they are sometimes, and of course we're you know generalizing, um, sometimes more quicker to just make the decision, even if it's not the right one.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just sometimes the right decision is making a decision, the wrong decision is not making a decision.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and I wonder, you know, it sounds like, yeah, sure, some men are doing that, and yet some are really panicked, but maybe hiding it differently, and it's showing up differently, and and we're not seeing that.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it a lot of it comes down to early childhood messaging.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, for example, and I'm gonna generalize for a moment and paint everybody with a big broad stroke, which I shouldn't do, but for these purposes, let's say messaging in a boy's childhood is that a boy is strong, a boy leads, a boy makes decisions, let's say, generally speaking.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if that same boy who receives that messaging is also shamed or shunned or disciplined for making the wrong decision, they learn that making decisions can be very dangerous.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we're very intuitive people as children.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: That boy will probably learn to defer to mom, to dad, to friends who seem more confident, to teachers.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And for a while that helps.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: But as they get older, um, that starts to harm them later in relationships at work.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when they realize oh, my coping mechanism that has become automatic as far as not making decisions is starting to hurt me, and I don't know what to do about it.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it is messaging that something is very dangerous existentially, but I also know logically that I need to become good at this, but it feels threatening.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So what do I do about that?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do you do about that?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it depends on it depends on a number of things.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: We need to realign what um this is this is a question about values, which is even more of a question about identity.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is about who we want to be moving forward, and more importantly, why.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is about identity realignment and connecting the right metrics and the right behaviors to the right values.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, an example is I don't make decisions because this is dangerous.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: What that's saying is I value safety over everything else.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: I value comfort over everything else.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And what we realize in adulthood is that value is flawed if it's at the very, very top of our pyramid, because we end up self-sabotaging, uh, self-sabotaging for a number of different ways.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes down to values realignment.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of person do I need to be in this life?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then connecting our behaviors that we end up doing moving forward to those values.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one prong.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the second prong is, well, I still have this residual learning that it's dangerous.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: My body is going to react a certain way.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do I redefine my relationship with being emotionally, mentally, and physically uncomfortable when I know that I need to start behaving in line with these new values?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where the work is.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: When your clients come in and they're talking to you about all of these challenges with self-esteem and anxiety and the ruminating thoughts and the, I'm sure, fear of failure and people, you know, the impactor syndrome, people finding you out.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: How often from the outside do they look like they've just got everything wrapped up in a very tidy bow and like they're just nailing it?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of their top priorities because external perception and an external sense of self-worth uh are very, very common.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm only gonna give myself permission to trust myself and like myself if I know that other people trust me and like me.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so a big part of that is having it look like on the surface everything is uh tied up in a beautiful little bow, because if it isn't, then I can't get the self-worth that I so uh sorely need.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so another piece of the work is saying right now our sense of self-worth is completely externalized where we need to flip it.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: We need to internalize our sense of self-worth.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like seeing a bag fly around in the wind and only feel confident when that bag is flying toward us.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have no control over it.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we we need to find ways to um create a solid enough sense of identity that we can internalize that sense of self-worth.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Recently, I I've seen quite a few of my LinkedIn lawyer colleagues uh talking about people they know in the industry um committing suicide.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Some of that's been recent, some of it's been the anniversary of that.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so often the stories, in fact, I think all of the stories that I know of are about you know, people who do from the outside look like they've got it all together in the way that you just described.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm trying to incorporate that as part of many of the discussions we have on the podcast because it's so easy to just look at you know, someone who's made partner and is making a lot of money and seems to just be a rainmaker and they brought it all together, and maybe they do, and maybe they really don't, and we're all putting on such a show that it's all weak, you know, no one's weak here, and I feel very strongly that you know we we have to start, um, or I guess we've started, but increasingly show up and say, like, we we we don't always have it all together.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: And here are safe places you can go when you think you have to say you've got it all together, um, and to learn how to engage with each other very vulnerably.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a really, really, really important topic.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you hear scratching in the background, it's because my dog is desperately trying to leave my office.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: The point I'll make here is this is really, really complicated because our need to fit in, our need to be seen positively favorably by others goes back almost as far as humanity does, if not earlier, right?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Before we're humans.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is a tribal thing, you know, and every therapist would talk about the tribe, you know, when we were cave people.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we were seen as unfavorable by the tribe and we were kicked out of the tribe, well, back then our life was at stake.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we would either die of hunger or predators would have us for lunch or or whatever it is.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so that need for us to fit in to be seen favorably is as primal as it gets.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: For us to say, we all go through it, let's be vulnerable.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's the beginning of having conversations, but it doesn't get rid of that ancestral residue in the fiber of our being.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what I would offer to those people is your feelings make sense.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: The friction within you makes sense.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: There is something about what you are doing day to day that is consistently violating your sense of self here.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: So let's see how we can either realign what it is that you do with what makes you come alive, with who you really are, with what your values and skill sets really are, so we can help you find that sense of alignment.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, every day you decide.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: To keep doing what you're doing.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: What's the end of this sentence?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're putting yourself, you're wearing away your ability to be resilient.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're wearing away your ability to um effectively confront the complicated and complex challenges in your life, if that makes sense, without getting too academic about it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a very complicated problem.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, we could have several conversations just about this, but uh are there ways that those of us, you know, either in someone's community or in the industry um specifically navigate these conversations that you actually find to be potentially harmful and that we should understand, like, yep, you're meaning well, but maybe try a different way.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good question.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime we judge from the outside as far as what the issues are, we are undermining their human experience.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're people, we have a lot in common, but the scenarios that we encounter in our lives are very contextual and very case by case.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um we can't begin to understand their experience.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um the decision to do something as final and tragic as this is um is their last resort.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: They have um they've gotten to a point where they feel like there's no coming back from this.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: That needs to be met with all the gravitas in the world.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is devastating.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So to impart any sort of judgment, oh, this is likely what they were experiencing, that doesn't help anybody.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: And really, the only the person is likely only saying that to either insert themselves into the conversation, or, you know, I don't know.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's a good question, Ariella.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a good question.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably need to think about that more.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: But anytime we impose a certain judgment on it, we're we're not doing anyone any favors.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: For someone who actually loves what they do and they are really good at it, and the work itself is an excellent fit, and yet they're still showing up with anxiety and imposter syndrome and you know, all of those kind of ah feelings, how do you how is it different to help that person navigate and understand and develop their values and self-identity differently than for someone who's actually in the wrong space?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if they're living in alignment with their values by by practicing law, let's say, if they're if they're in line with their skill sets, their value system, all of that, um, well then they really just need to work on their emotional regulation skills.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there are different ways of doing that.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: There are different reasons for why our emotional regulation skills might not be where they are.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I will say the number one, in my view, this is my opinion, but the number one underrated skill set that we can learn as people is to develop healthy emotional regulation skills.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: The number one, there's nothing that beats it.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so if someone is working in alignment with their values and their skill sets, uh, but they're still experiencing anxiety, depression, personality disorders, whatever it might be, um, we need to uncover how to bolster those emotional regulation skills.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Big question, and I'm sure this could uh you know take its own multi-series answer.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but what are some of the first steps that someone can take to learn how to better manage their emotional state?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: To notice that their emotional experience is an experience, it's not identity.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: So to notice their anxiety as an experience of anxiety as opposed to I am anxious, right?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: To see it as a third-party experience is the first building block, I would say.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you said that.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: And right before you did say it, I was gonna ask you how you feel about I am statements.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: I, for myself, have been thinking a lot about those statements because now I really feel like a healthy person in a way I never thought would be available to someone like me.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was in my most of my life when I was not feeling this way, I never called myself sick.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I have wondered how and how much of a role not identifying as a sick person had, if not everything.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, I believe very strongly in you know how much your mindset matters and the way you talk to yourself matters, and the way, of course, the way you identify matters.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: And something as simple as saying, I am fill in the blank tells you that you are.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's I don't mean it at all to negate whatever challenge you're experiencing, but as you said, and I like the way you framed it as look at it from, I think you said it from a third-person perspective, creating some separation.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: It all comes back to the big identity question, all of this, right?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is about who we are and who we know ourselves to be.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: If we see, if we notice that we are experiencing a thing, um, that's different from saying, I am this thing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the metaphor is you go down, you go to the beach and the waves are coming in, right?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the wave is coming in.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're experiencing this wave crashing on our feet, we're maybe moving around by it, right?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: The wave is coming in, but we are not the wave, right?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: We are we are not any of that.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: We are someone that's experiencing the wave coming and going.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so in a nutshell, I would say noticing would be uh the number one building block.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, people might think that sounds trite, but um we can't regulate what we can't notice.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we need to be able to notice what's going on first.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also that learning how to do that isn't an overnight job.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, but it is a skill, so that's helpful.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh we can work at it, we can develop that skill, uh, thank goodness.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: Were there certain exercises or practices that you started to incorporate once you started to understand which direction you needed your life to go in that helped you start to piece together how to show up authentically in the way that you now, it seems, are able to?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I I lean into acceptance and commitment therapy quite a bit.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um I don't wanna don't want to drone on and and and bore people with what this particular exercise is or what this idea is, but there's this uh fundamental concept of the choice point where we could either behave in ways that take us away from our values, or we can behave in ways that take us toward our values.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it also includes the concept of whether we are hooked by our uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, um, and how we can unhook from those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the binary, normally we like to stay away from rigidity in therapy, but the binary of away from our values, toward our values can be helpful in those moments where um where we feel hooked by uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: For someone who is, let's say, in the state that you were in when you started trying to understand what to do next, what would you want that person to understand about what's available to them?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would first I would first help them understand that skills can't be underestimated here.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is about skill set, how we choose to view certain things, what we choose to put our attention on, what our focus on, with the aim of building resilience, for the most part, if not entirely, our skills.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they will not come naturally at first because we're not used to them.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Anything new is unnatural at first.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but to buy into the process and to do the work, because the work doesn't, for the most part, happen in the session.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: It happens between sessions.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: So to I would say as like a closing thought, it's about um committing to building mental skills, emotional skills, even physiological skills, um, and taking it one day at a time and knowing that you know things don't change overnight.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, David.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was wonderful.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoyed.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: Please be sure to check out the links in the show notes and to rate and subscribe the podcast.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you have a wonderful day, and please remember to be kind to yourself.