CB LIVE Courage to Leap and Lead: Guest Rick Petry, Episode 91

Hello everybody, how are you today? It's Tuesday, so you're here with CB Bowman Live. It's so good to see you again. Hey, I've got some news for you. We are changing our format a little bit. We're going to do a shorter LinkedIn Live and a longer pod stream, so— or podcast, as they say. And so you can find us on all of your major podcast channels, including iMusic, Amazon, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio. You know the list, right? So today we have a special guest. We have Rick Petrie on. Rick, did I pronounce your last name right?

Yes, you did.

Oh, good, good. And Rick is an attorney, and he has some incredible information about having courage. You know, we met in a group together fairly recently, maybe about 6 months ago, and Rick was the standout person in the group besides me, of course. And I was so fascinated by the work that he's doing in universities, and I asked him to write an article for my LinkedIn Live newsletter, which you know about. If you don't, visit me on LinkedIn and you have a chance to see it. And he wrote the most outstanding article, which you will see in May. My newsletter comes out the first week in May, and it comes out the first week of each month. And you can subscribe to it so that it goes directly in your inbox through LinkedIn. And so I read this article and I said, Rick, you have to come on the show. And I need to ask you some incredible questions. And so the first question that I asked him that he agreed to was talk about a time where you had to have the courage to take an aerial view of a problem in order to move forward. What was it that you learned, right? And so then later on in the podcast, he's going to answer 2 more questions. But first, let me introduce my dear friend, Rick Pitre. Rick, welcome to CB Live.

Well, thank you, CB. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I, I always enjoy our conversations, and I'm looking forward to having an awesome conversation with you today.

Well, thank you. Hold on to your seat, get ready. And don't you know, doesn't his background look like an attorney? He's got books and plaques and All of this and that, which is fabulous. So first thing I want to ask you, Rick, what are you up to these days?

Well, a number of things. I am actually not practicing law now. I'm working in a law school and teaching law students how to practice law. But in addition to that, I'm also—

In my book, that's practicing law.

Fair enough, fair enough.

I hate to say it, but that show comes to mind, that new show. What was her name? What's the name of the show? Was she murder somebody?

You know, I don't watch lawyer shows really. I never— I did before I practiced, but now it's like I had enough of that. I'm just going to teach these guys how to do this and teach even faculty members and others how to have what they consider to be very difficult conversations because that's where we're at in the world right now. As leaders, you talk about courage, so we need to have some of these difficult conversations now in order to move the needle forward. That's what I'm doing.

So I'm anxious. Plus you're doing some coaching, right?

Oh yeah, yeah, I do coaching, executive coaching. Um, primarily focused with lawyer leaders, but also corporate executives as well.

You know, we don't think of attorneys as needing coaches. Tell us about that experience.

Oh, that's a good point. You know, lawyers, some somewhat like educators, see themselves as being very intelligent. And for the most part, they are very intelligent. They're highly trained, highly skilled in how to practice law. And lawyers often end up in leadership positions, sometimes by default, right? You have the title lawyer. Everybody thinks you're super smart and that you should know the answers to everything. And some lawyers buy into that. But that's not necessarily true. And unfortunately, most lawyers never receive any sort of formal leadership training. And as a result, sometimes it works well, other times not so much. And that's where I come into play.

You know, it's interesting because years ago I worked for a firm in White Plains, New York, and they specialized in helping people who had studied law leave the practice of law. and do something else. And it was very eye-opening for me because actually it was mostly men that I had as clients. Most of them were very disillusioned with the practice of law after spending so much time in university.

Mm-hmm.

And many of them wanted to go into sports. What is the correction? They wanted to be sports agents, sports attorneys, or Some sort of thing related to sports.

Yeah, well, you know, as a lawyer, sometimes there's a lot of competition involved. The legal system's adversarial in nature, which means you've got these 2 sides competing against each other, trying to resolve these various disputes. And that's— so that's one piece of it. I think that's what drives people to these other arenas. But the other piece of it, and I'm so glad that you raised this issue, because I think it's critically important, is that for decades the legal industry has known about many areas where people are suffering, and I believe needlessly suffering, but no one wanted to talk about it, right? I think it was perhaps some concern about, you know, public confidence in the legal industry, and if we talk about these problems, then folks won't trust their lawyers. But that didn't mean that the problems didn't exist. They did exist. They just kept getting swept under the rug, or if somebody brought them up, then they would run the risk of being ostracized. And that's a real problem. That's a real problem.

So, so what kind of problems exist that we should know about that we can actually, as clients, as attorneys, develop some compassion for?

Yeah, it ranges from all sorts of things. Depression is very common within the legal industry. Things that people may think, God, I would have never guessed that, but isolation and loneliness. In fact, I read a study 2 years ago that said that for new lawyers, the number one challenge for them was loneliness. And who would think that, right? You have these people that have gone through 4 years of undergraduate, 3 years of law school. Now, finally, they've reached their goal. of becoming a practicing lawyer, and they're lonely. There's also alcoholism, drug abuse, all of these issues that people are struggling with. And that's very real. That's very real. In fact, even suicide. I lost 2 good friends to suicide, both lawyers, both good men, dads, active in the community. But for some reason, they decided that suicide was their best out. So there are real problems that need to be addressed.

Let's talk about that a little because I'm actually not surprised. And the reason why I'm not surprised is I compare it to my field, which is coaching. You know, the fact that we have to keep everything confidential means that we're holding it all in to ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

We don't have a chance to give ourselves a break.

Mm-hmm.

And the only time that we do is through being in an association with like-minded people that we know will keep a confidence. Like my association, the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, where we have very high-level discussions. We never disclose the name of the client. We never disclose the name of the company. But we can talk about the situation. And even with not disclosing that information, We can talk earnestly and see if somebody else has had that kind of experience. And how do you position the difficult conversation with a client? You might need to fire a client. You may need to disclose to the company of the client that there's been some theft going on.

Mm-hmm.

You know, these are some hard— some, some alcohols some drug abuse. These are all situations where you can't just go and talk to the general public about it. You even need permission to talk to the owners of a company or HR department about it. And you certainly, certainly run the risk of being sued by the client and the company. And many, many of the new coaches or coaches that are not properly trained don't know this, don't understand it.

Yeah, that's a real issue. That's a real issue. I think there's a couple of things that we can unpack there. One is the reality that folks are in right now. The last couple of years, I sometimes like to describe it like the snow globe. That's been shaken and then shaken again and turned upside down and shaken again. It's being re-shaken right now with the war in the Ukraine. And people have been suffering, right? Suffering with uncertainty, suffering with mental health issues as a result of work and life and home and everything being combined and then uncombined. And now we're in this new world, right?

Mm-hmm.

And some people say, well, we should just get back to business as usual. Well, it's not business as usual. People are not as they were before all of this started. And for coaches, for leaders, for lawyers, for everyone, we have to acknowledge that and embrace that. You know, as leaders, you know, we want people to show up and give us the best that they can give us, right? But we, we want them to do that come what may. And that's not always easy to do.

Yes.

You know, and so we have to provide that kind of support for people. I had a conversation with some leaders yesterday. They said, well, I'm not really into that mushy, squishy, lovey-dovey stuff. And it's like, I, I get that, but it's, you can't separate the two. There were times certainly when there's no room in business for love and emotion and all that stuff. Well, how's that working for you now is my question.

You know, I am laughing, uh, with you, not at you, and with the statement because I'm one of those people. I'm one of those hard-hitting, hard-driving people. And then I met my husband and, oh shoot, the walls came tumbling down. Wait a second now. Yeah, you know, then you've got that emotional part to deal with. And there are people like me that like, what, what, what? And we're just like, we're asking questions to try to understand all this stuff. So I get it, I totally get it. I've even said to the members of ACEC, they're like A couple of years ago, they said, CB, calm down. I'm like, what do you mean calm down? No, no, no, we have to do this now.

Yeah.

So I totally get it. And, you know, I want to circle back to the point that you said about courage. What do you see is the— no, you know what, I'm going to save that for the second half. I want to answer This question for you personally. When have you been in a situation where you had to stop, rise above the situation, look down, dissect it, and figure out what was going on? And what are the lessons that you learned?

Yeah, for me, that was following the murder of George Floyd, which happened in my town.

Wow.

Yeah, you know, as a Black man, it impacted me very deeply on a very personal level. Um, I remember the day that I received a text from my former, uh, law officemate telling me that it had happened. He asked if I had watched the video, and I thought I hadn't seen it yet, and my initial reaction was, and I don't want to see it. But like the rest of the world, it was pretty much impossible to avoid. And so when that happened, right, this is during the pandemic where everything— the snow globe, so to say— had already been shaken. And then we add this to the mix, and I'm at a law school where some of the things that relate to the pandemic, to George Floyd, this demand for social justice Is right in the heart of what we do here. And I thought, well, we can avoid it, or we can take it from a different perspective and embrace it, right? If we're going to be this epicenter, if you will, of this problem, maybe there's an opportunity for us to also serve as the epidemic— or excuse me, the epicenter for finding better ways of doing what we do. I chose that personally, and I approached the members of the law school, and I suggested that that's exactly what we do, that we not avoid it, that instead we walk right into the teeth of it and embrace it and have those kinds of conversations both with our students and with our staff, our faculty members, and our administration, and even our alumni. And that's what we did, which required a tremendous amount of courage. That could have worked great, or it could have also been an absolute disaster. Fortunately for us, at least initially, it was the right decision to make.

What was the lesson that you learned, and how can you apply that in the future?

The lesson for me was even in that situation, which again, for me, very Personally was devastating was that at times you have to be willing to be a bit vulnerable, that maybe as the leader you may have to put aside, at least temporarily, my individual concerns and show up for those people that are placed in my care because they needed someone to do something. And rather than run from the problem, I chose to embrace the problem, even though it was difficult for me. I won't make light of it. It was very difficult for me. But I knew that there were people that relied on me to show up. And that was the lesson, that sometimes even in the most challenging situations, as the leader, you need to be the person that shows up. You need to be the person that is calm, that can chart a course forward that inspires people and makes them feel like, even though things are really bad right now, I think it's going to be okay.

Would you say that that lesson that you learned will serve you in the future? And, and that's the first part of the question. And the second part of the question is, how did you take care of yourself? In other words, Did you take some time aside to do a self-check-in to be sure that this was working for you to help you heal? Tell us a little bit.

Yes. So the, the first answer is yes, it will definitely serve me in the future. It's still serving me now. Frankly, I think that's part of what brought you and I together to have this conversation now. In terms of the personal self-care piece of it, one of the things that I did every morning as soon as I woke up was I meditated. That really helped to keep me grounded. It helped to take the, you know, my busy mind, my concerns, my fears, my worries, and set them aside for a little while. And what I found was that When I did that every single day, that I could show up grounded, like I wasn't nervous, I wasn't afraid, I wasn't frazzled, I wasn't any of those things. I was grounded and in a very good headspace, um, to be there for the people that counted on me to show up every day. I had a whole school, frankly, I had a whole school counting on me to be the one To show up every day. We only had, at that time, we only had 2 African American males in school and working here as faculty or administrators or what have you. And so that allowed me to be able to do that. Now, over time, if I'm honest, it's kind of become a lot. And I'm having to do even more self-care now. And sometimes I just have to unplug completely from the situation. But only unplug so that I can refresh and restore So that I can come back and continue this work.

You made a couple of comments. You said that there were 2 African Americans in the faculty there. Was that a hindrance or a benefit?

Good question. I don't know if I can answer it as an either/or. I think it just was what it was. Yeah, one, one person was active. Nobody did nothing, but I think people approached it in different ways. Since I had made the decision to walk directly into this issue, I think I approached it differently than, than the other person did.

What kinds of— you, you've said a couple of times that it affected you personally, um, as a Black man. Can you share with us your experience? How did it affect you? Why did it affect you? And I know the audience probably thinks that's a stupid question, but it actually isn't because, you know, just like all races, each person is affected differently in, in the same scenario.

Yeah, it affected me in several ways. One of the first things that I noticed was within the week afterward, after Mr. Floyd was murdered, there was a lot going on in our community. There were riots. The city was on fire, literally on fire. And my daughter called me one day and she said, Dad, I feel hopeless. I, I don't know what to do. I feel like I want to do something, but I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do. And as a father, to hear your daughter say that she feels hopeless is one of the worst things, probably, as a parent that, that's ever happened to me. Um, and so I got with her and I said, well, One of the things that we might do is maybe we can get together and we can go. I'm not going to take you into the heart of the riots and all that kind of stuff, but if you're interested, maybe we can go and see some of that. And so we decided that we would do that. Now again, as a father, I'm kind of old school in this way. I'm gonna do everything I can to protect that girl. She's 21, 22. Um, so a young lady, but still my little girl. And so—

I'm gonna tear up now. Stop.

I'm just keeping it real.

It's not old school, it's father school. It's being a good father. Yeah, that's it. Drop the mic on that one.

Yeah, yeah. So we did that, and, you know, I, I had the same thing with, with students here. They, they wanted— we had really 3 different groups, right? We had one group of students that was so impacted, so traumatized by it, that they said, I just can't, no more. Literally, I had a student call me from her home, and out— she's a single mother, she had a young daughter Literally outside of her apartment window were riots and the National Guard and all this. And she's— so she's trying to figure out, what in the heck do I do, right? I'm trying to go to law school, I'm trying to be a parent, what do I do? So we had that group of students. We had another group of students that were really fascinated by the legal issues that came out of that, and they wanted to dive into those legal issues. And then we had a group of students, of course, in the middle that are like, we just don't know what to do. And so, I was the person that had to show up and be of service to all of those people. And, you know, that's a lot. That is really a lot. And over time, the impact was, you know, fatigue, trauma, vicarious trauma, fear. Frankly, I have a son as well I'm concerned about every day. You know, are they going to be okay? Am I going to— frankly, am I going to be okay? CB, I was stopped once during this time by a state patrol, uh, person, and I got to tell you, I've never been as afraid being stopped by police than I was that day because I didn't know what was going to happen. As it turned out, it was fine, but initially it's like, oh God, am I going to be the one today? So, you know, all of those things to have to deal with. But again, you know, I could, I could have avoided all of that. I could have just remained quiet, stayed on the sideline. But as someone who sees himself as a leader and someone who takes that responsibility very seriously, like the people that are placed in my care, I have an obligation to them. And so that's what I did, you know, come what may. Wow.

Okay. Well, I don't even know how to follow up on this other than to say thank you for your leadership. Thank you for all that you did. Thank you for all that you're doing. And, you know, if anything, any takeaway from this particular segment, it's have the courage to stay your true north, to To be your conviction. Have that courage, because not only will it help you— and I get from talking to you now that it helped you tremendously— but it helped others as much.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I think sometimes people think to be courageous, you have to be the one that runs into the burning building, or the car falls on the little kid and you have to be the one that picks them up, or, you know, something along those lines. And it's— there's so much more to it than that. I also think sometimes people get mixed up and think that courage means that I'm the one who acts with no fear. That's not courage.

No.

Courage is acting despite the fear. Putting yourself out there with uncertainty about the outcome, right? I had no idea how the outcome would be. I didn't. I just didn't. But it didn't matter. What did matter is I knew that I needed to show up for those people who were placed in my care, come what may. And that's courage.

Absolutely. And, you know, that's part of what I support people in understanding. You know, we just don't have a good understanding of the word courage because it's been built up to be this, you know, mammoth structure like the pyramids of Egypt. And frankly, courage is everyday acts to decide or not to decide. I was thinking this morning As I was preparing for this interview, and I thought, I'm starving. I just had breakfast. And I said, now, CB, have the courage not to go for the Häagen-Dazs for breakfast too. And I stopped myself. Not to make light of our conversation, but that was a decision. And it was a hard decision because I wanted some Häagen-Dazs this morning.

Yeah.

So, um, I encourage all of you to listen to part 2 of this by podcast as you're cycling, as you're walking, as you're driving, and find out more. And with that, thank you so much, Rick. We'll continue on to part 2. Everyone, this has been CB Live.

Thank you.

And I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday. And somebody that you know signed in and said, glad to join you, Rick. So I hope they will tune in. I don't know who it is. It just says LinkedIn Live. So with that, goodbye everybody, and thank you, Rick.

Thank you.