Success Secrets Exposed - Building Resilient Women in Law

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Welcome to Success Secrets Exposed with Sally A. Curtis, where we share stories of challenge, success, and inspiration, along with practical tips and strategies to move you forward to your success. And now here's your host, Sally A. Curtis.

Good evening, good morning, and welcome to Success Secrets Exposed. We've got another action-packed episode for you today. We're going to be continuing our theme on business growth. We're going to tap into personal growth, one of my favorite areas today as well. For me, personal growth and peak performance has been an integral part of who I am and what I do. I love the fast-paced activity. I love change, etc. And I have had that very fast-paced rushing woman syndrome that many of us have had. And for me, I didn't actually realize the benefits of wellness and peak performance and even stillness and how that can affect both careers, life, and personal growth, etc. And For me, one of the key lessons that I've learned in being that rushing woman, that very busy person, and not really focusing on my own wellness was that ability to always be in service, to always be rushing around filling everybody else's buckets up while my own bucket had holes in the bottom of it. I'm sure many of you can relate to being that person as an entrepreneur, as a mother, and as a career person. Now, I'm really, really excited to share Lara with you today. I've spent some time with Lara, and the conversations that we have had have really identified the parallels with the industry that she works in, which is the legal profession, and the parallels that I've experienced in my own entrepreneurial journey. The benefits of that wellness as it relates to peak performance, and in my case, having time to actually have stillness. For those that know me really well, they, you know, I'm always rushing around, I'm always super fast-paced. But my strength in enabling to continue to do that is actually finding, having, having those moments of stillness. So I'm super excited to share Lara Wentworth with you today. Now Lara is an experienced wellness and performance coach, and she does help lawyers to have and build better careers and lives through having stronger mindsets, more resilient mindsets, as well as then giving them the ability to adapt and maintain healthy mindsets in their business and practice, but also managing the flexibility, especially as they in that profession are under some extreme pressures to perform and to help and be of service. Lara is an experienced lawyer with a career spanning more than 20 years in both leadership— so very much a leadership expert— performance, as well as learning and development and coaching. So please help me welcome Lara Wentworth to the show.

Hi, Sally.

How are you?

I'm really well. How are you going?

Yeah, very well too. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, for joining us today. Really, really appreciate it.

Absolute pleasure. Thank you.

I know we've had some really great conversations and I really love what you do and your community thrive on the information and the insights that you share with them.

Thank you.

Can I ask you to share a little bit of your backstory of how you've got to sort of where you are? Um, we're happy to have the warts and all story too. So there's lots of those.

Sure thing. So, um, as you mentioned in the introduction, I'm a lawyer by profession and I've been a lawyer for quite a while now. I'm also a mother of 3 children and I'm also an entrepreneur and I suppose you could call me an entrepreneur and a business person and I've set up my own coaching and training practice focusing on lawyers. But in terms of the backstory, it's really about, you know, me being in a profession that's extremely demanding, extremely high-pressured, and a lot have described it as a, you know, more of a male-orientated sort of profession that caters more for the lives of and the realities of men than women. And really just worked my way up through that profession with a lot of hard work, But really putting myself second or next or at the bottom of the list so that I could get to that ideal place where I could call myself successful. Mm-hmm. And I guess I really realized that success for me in that context, now looking back on it, was very much something that I aspired to so that I can satisfy the profession's idea of success or society's idea of success. And I really neglected my own version and my own story of success. So I suppose you could say that I had a bit of a soul-searching moment a few years ago when I thought, you know, when I got to partnership in the firm that I was in and decided that, you know, I've ticked the boxes as far as success is concerned. I rushed around, as you explained, you know, rushed around looking after 3 children. I rushed around being mummy and being a lawyer and being a wife and doing all of that sort of stuff. Suffered a lot of mental health in the process, you know, suffered a lot of depression, anxiety, stress, and all the things that come with neglecting self-care, really. And then I decided that I would like to share my story with others and really teach and coach and train other lawyers as to how to have that balance, firstly in here and then in our external reality.

And this is where we are. Absolutely. So as we said, there's lots of certain parallels, I think, with women probably, and certainly entrepreneurs with that rushing, that syndrome, that are we good enough? And all of them, I'm going to call it my version of mental gymnastics. You probably yourself, like me, I've certainly had those bouts of depression and I've certainly burnt myself out at least 3 times and have finally learned the lesson from that. What do you see as some of the common problems in your— in the profession when you were in it and now as an outsider observing it from a different perspective? I'd love to hear that.

Look, I think as a lawyer, we kind of get indoctrinated into this culture that, you know, in order to be successful, you've got to follow these values. You know, these things need to be important to you. And I did that. So I think, you know, the pitfalls that a lot of lawyers fall in is that, you know, in order to be a successful lawyer, I've got to have this, you know, really strong personality and reputation about someone who just fights for their client. I've got to be someone who doesn't feel, you know. Mm-hmm. I've got to be this robot who can put on a face and be that kind of advocate. I've got to be stressed, which is an interesting concept. You know, I need to be stressed so that I could be a good lawyer. There's that kind of backdrop, if you like, or this belief system that if you're not stressed, maybe that means you don't have enough work, or maybe that means you're not sought after enough, and therefore you're not a good lawyer. Mm-hmm. And so It's just like our own unconscious beliefs as human beings that kind of guide our behavior and influence our decisions. We have that collectively as a profession. And what I have found now looking back on my experience and also coaching lawyers now from this position is that a lot of lawyers say to me, you know, before I started working with you, I truly believed that I needed stress in my life to be an effective lawyer. So it becomes this kind of vicious circle where we become stressed so that we could be good lawyers, then we burn out because chronic stress does that to us without those respites and those moments of self-care. And then when we become stressed out and burnt out, we, we become ineffective because that shuts us off from our resources, internal resources. And then we don't say anything about it because then we're worried that others will perceive us as not capable or not good enough. So we just continue this cycle over and over again until one day, you know, there's, you know, nervous breakdowns or some— something severe like that where we have to make a change.

We've just had an absolute flurry of questions coming in. So, okay, all the ones I've just caught. A couple of people have asked what led you to law and what type of law did you practice when you were practicing? Cool.

So I suppose what led me to law, I'd like to— I'd love to say actually that it was that feeling of wanting to help people and make sure justice prevails and all those beautiful things. But the reality for me is that when I was— when I came out of school, I was told by my parents that I'd make a good lawyer and therefore I should really strongly— they strongly encouraged me to do that. And being the oldest of 5 children, I had to be a role model for the— for my family. And I gave it some consideration in the back of my mind. I thought I could do that, you know, that would be cool. I could, you know, help people. And so I kind of— I feel like I was thrown into it straight from high school because my parents said it was a good idea. And I did too, with my own, you know, what an 18-year-old thinks is a good idea at the time. And so, so I did it. And, you know, I mean, I enjoyed— I enjoyed it most of the time. It was a very rewarding profession. And to answer the second part of the question, I firstly did compensation law, what we call personal injury law in Australia, and then I moved into the family law sphere and wills and probate.

A couple more questions in there.

Good.

So the first one was just comment on how finding it interesting how people actually do like to put themselves under extreme pressure in that quest for being successful. I'm thinking my own case, to feel successful, I needed to feel like I was busy and doing stuff, you know, in that frame. I'd love your comment on that. And perhaps if you can weave into that, we're also getting comments about the ill effects of holding or pushing down those emotions and what that does from a perspective. So, and I'll catch up on the rest of the questions that are there.

Awesome. And hold on to that second part of the question, Sally, because I could, I could go off on a tangent So just bring me back in. That's alright. So I think a lot of it, the first part of the question, a lot of it has to do with the types of personalities that the profession attracts. Generally speaking, lawyers or people are attracted to the law because they have that, you know, overachieving kind of personality where they're very ambitious. You know, we're very ambitious people. You know, where we are now is never good enough. We've got to get to the next level and the next stage. And In order for us to function properly, we need that sort of pressure to, to almost sort of propel us into our excellence, which in theory sounds great, right? Like, that's, that's pretty cool. Why can't we just continue to do that? The problem with our types— and I'm generalizing, you know, there might be lawyers out there going, that, that doesn't sound like me, and that, that's perfectly fine— but from what I've seen and from what I've experienced, this is This is my, my opinion. So what happens a lot of the time is that we feel the pressure, and because we've got this overachieving personality with a tinge of insecurity, you know, there's this professor in the UK who's done some great studies on this. Her name is Laura Empson, and she describes lawyers and most professionals as these insecure overachievers, where we, we overachieve to fill this void of being good enough. Mm-hmm. as because it's an unconscious pattern, it never gets filled with any external thing that we do. And so we don't know where to pull the plug on the pressure, and we continue to mount that pressure thinking it's what we need in order to achieve and perform. And like I did when I was, you know, practicing in the thick of it, I just overcommitted and I said yes to everything, and I didn't want anyone to know that I was struggling. And You know, I was working part-time and I was taking on full-time work and yes, you know, I said yes to everything because that's what we do, right? Who we are as lawyers. So, and so we continue to mount that pressure without any kind of quality check, if you like, about what's that doing to us, what's that doing to our families, what's that doing to our mental health. And the second part of the— yeah.

I wrote down the word calibrate. There was, for me, there was no calibration. I just kept going. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And just on that, actually, part of the work that I do with lawyers now is to build this internal gauge so that we can calibrate. And we can get to that point where we go, yeah, pressure is good to a certain degree, and it helps us. I mean, as human beings, we need a certain level of stress in our lives to function. But there's a difference, massive difference, between that healthy level of stress where we kind of, you know, we've got that, you know, emotional cocktail to take action, and this chronic stress that causes burnout. Mm-hmm. And so that's that internal gauge that, that I help people build, which I didn't have for a long time. And I think, yeah, and, and we don't, as women, you know, we don't. We, we, we believe that we're built for service, you know, and we're built to serve other people around us. And if we have time or if we have energy, we might think about ourselves. And that's common. And even when we do think about ourselves, there's that sort of level of guilt. Oh, maybe I should have spent that time with the kids, or maybe I should have answered one more email, or maybe I should have done something with that time rather than looking after ourselves first.

Which I think— Yeah. How long do we study law in Australia?

So it depends if you do a combined degree or a single degree. So different universities have different programs. But if you're coming straight out of university— out of high school, generally speaking, you've got to do a combined degree, which took me 5 years full-time. plus another 6 months to 12 months of practical legal training. So about 5 and a half to 6 years all up, provided you don't fail anything, which could take a bit longer.

That was a quick question to drop in there. I just saw that one flash up.

Awesome.

So we were talking about sort of pushing those emotions down and what that does to the individual, which we've sort of gone backwards and forwards on. Do you have any additional thoughts on that?

Sure, yeah, look, This, this I think goes hand in hand with emotional intelligence, EQ, which, which we know isn't something that— it doesn't just come with intelligence. So just having an IQ doesn't mean you have a high EQ. And a lot of lawyers have a high IQ and we just assume that they have the level of EQ that they need to be successful. To bring it back to the question about pushing down pressure, What happens with emotions that are quite sort of intense and have that tinge of pain in them, and pressure does have that level, you know, people find pain in pressure, is that the more we push it down or the more that we resist it, it actually gains momentum and it gains energy and it pushes back.

Yeah.

Because what happens with those feelings, you know, pressure could also be anxiety, it could also be fear, It could also be, you know, stress. It could be those kind of survival feelings, I suppose, if you want to call them, that we feel when we're in that— when we're under threat or when there's a danger out there.

Mm-hmm.

The more we ignore those things, the more that they kind of come back up, because ultimately the purpose of those feelings is to warn us of danger. I mean, that's what's helped us survive as a species all this time. You know, we've got this part of the brain that says, You know, danger, danger, danger, do something about it.

Yeah.

And so bottling down pressure simply means that you're— it's building momentum ready to— just like, you know, like any kind of pressure, the more you press on it, that's where pressure comes from, press. The more you press on it, the more it presses back. So there's healthier ways of dealing with those feelings rather than burying them, and generally that's processing them.

Beautiful. A couple of questions I just saw. Peter Nichols, thank you for joining us again this week, Peter. Appreciate it. I'll come back to your question, Peter, because there's been a couple of others that have just been coming back through. Somebody's really keen to know, when you were studying law, did you actually have pleasure during that period in the work that you were doing? And obviously your calling's moved away from actually practicing law. But now you're serving law in a different way. So I suppose there was a before calling and an after calling, if you can actually explain that. Yeah, yeah,

sure. Look, I believe that your calling in life, whether it be in your vocation or any other area, can change. It could be what, you know, is your calling for this particular period of time. And so at the time, I actually enjoyed studying law. It was, it was, you know, lots of pressure, lots of work, and I thrived on that. Mm-hmm. And I, you know, that was kind of how my unconscious programming was designed to achieve and to strive and to enjoy that sort of pressure. So I did feel like that was the right thing for me to do, even though when it got really, really tough and I was like, oh man, this is, you know, this is really make or break sort of thing. My personality is to, you know, when things get hard, I try harder because I will not, you know, I will not back down, you know, sort of thing. And I'd visualize that day where I would graduate, and that really, that compelling vision of my future really pulled me forward. But I'll tell you something, I started, I think the cohort I was in was 200 people, and only about 60 graduated.

Oh, wow.

So it really does kind of, you know, it makes people realize that this is not for me, and that's perfect because you should never do— so at the time it was, I felt like it was my calling and I was very passionate about it. I suppose, you know, those feelings of striving and thriving under pressure kind of then grew into something unhealthy because I didn't have the EQ, I didn't have the strategies or the tools to be aware and rein them in and really use them for what they're designed for. And so my calling, my second— the second part of my chapter, my life calling, was when I decided— I got to a point, Sally, where I was like, you know what, I feel like I have done what I need to do in this space. And there was this voice that kept saying to me, there's others who need you more than your family law clients need you. Mm-hmm. And I'm passionate about helping clients, really. Like, being in family law really helped me realize how you know, conflict and having those unconscious patterns can really hold people back. And the children suffered, and there was just all this pain around it. And I noticed that lawyers, if they were unconscious themselves, didn't help the situation.

Yeah.

So I guess the second part of my calling was, how can I help more clients? How can I help my community? How can I help the world in my own small way? And that was to help lawyers become more conscious and aware. And so I followed that calling.

I think that's where we have that kindred spirit thread going through of being in service and sort of understanding what we've gone through ourselves, um, and how that's affected it, uh, personally and families and all those sorts of things. And then looking at the good that's been created when we've been more conscious. So just going back to, uh, Peter Nichols' question. So Peter's in the coaching arena, um, as we are. Um, and he's asked a really, really great question as it relates to what are some tips or strategies that you can perhaps suggest for somebody that is a coach themselves when they go through their own personal mental challenges at the same time? I'd love your perspective on that.

Great question, Peter. Because, you know, sometimes as coaches, we forget that we're human beings as well. And we think we've got to be this kind of, you know, ideal, you know, whatever you want to call it.

We dare say perfection.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And we're not allowed to have moments of all those things. I think that in itself is an unhealthy mindset. I think that the idea behind being in charge of our minds and therefore our lives and our results doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have moments of stress. Or, I mean, if you heard me this morning with my children, I lost control. I'll be honest with you, but I was aware of it the whole time, and I knew that I was losing control, but I let myself go for that moment. So, you know, one of the most valuable skills I think I learned as a coach isn't that we are not allowed to feel certain emotions or lose control or be human. It's how long we stay there that matters. You know, how long we stay there. Sometimes anger is good. There's information in those feelings, these emotions that help us, you know, understand ourselves and the world around us better. It's just a how long, and be kind to yourself. You know, remember that you are a human being at the end of the day, and you have emotions, and you have unconscious patterns. Sorry, I need to cough.

So

be kind to yourself.

Sorry. I'll answer another one. Questions here. A great question here, and I can answer parts of this, and I'd love your comment on it as well. Do coaches need coaches at times? And if they do, would it show a sort of weakness on their part? So for me, I'll just say, and I'll commend Peter as it relates, and commend you on sharing your story of the children this morning. I've had a similar scenario with the dog that kept busting in. You know, sharing those moments And as you've just done, laughing about it now and having the awareness around it and sharing that with your community. I know Peter, who I know very, very well here in Adelaide, he messaged me one day during the week last week and I was having a grumpy day and I shared it. And it's not something I'd normally do, so there's that element of being vulnerable and sharing which proves that you actually are human and it becomes very engaging.

Yeah.

And for me, I've always, as a coach, I've always had coaches at particular times for particular purposes to help me have forward movement. But for me, I'm not perhaps quite skewed with the achievement gene as much as yourself are from a lawyer's perspective. But mine's evolution. I see my word as evolution. I always want to change. I always want to grow. I always want to evolve into something more. Yeah. So I've been on that same sort of quest and that That, you know, quite a forward movement.

Yeah.

And yeah, love your thoughts on coaches needing coaches.

Yes. Look, I think, you know, if you are a coach and you don't get coached at some stage, change that quick smart and get yourself a coach for whatever purpose you need. I have— I mean, you know, I've worked with you, you've worked with me. I've got, you know, another NLP coach that I just had a session with this week. It's like this. All the skills in the world for us as coaches may not assist us see our own reality. It's a different ballgame.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you, if you are, if you're swinging a club, if you're a golfer, or a bat, if you're whatever, a baseballer, it's very hard for you to see where you are swinging it incorrectly. But if you have somebody with golfing skills or whatever you want, however far you want to take this analogy, watching you from the outside, it's a lot easier for them to pick up, because they're not invested, they're not involved, there's no, you know, there's just them objectively watching you. It's easier for them to pick up what you might be able to improve on. So in that context, in that sense, everybody needs coaching. Mm-hmm. Including coaches. And I think, I actually think coaches especially should be getting coached.

Yeah. Um, just had a question. What were the letters in front of the coach that you just mentioned? So that was NLP, which is—

Oh yes. Programming.

Is that correct? Yeah.

Yes.

So that's a different modality would be the word for that?

Yeah. Yeah. It's, you could, you could say it's a modality that I use in my coaching. So I'm trained in neurolinguistic programming. And just in a quick nutshell, it's the science of how the language of the mind sets up those programs that run our everyday lives, those unconscious programs.

Yeah. So, um, and for me, um, I'm also NLP trained and have had coaches around that. I'm working with a coach at the moment that is picking me up on my languaging. Um, so I'm, so I'm not sitting in the past, but I'm actually moving towards the future. So, slightly different, but it's all around the words that we take into our, into our own consciousness, which then creates our reality. Yeah. So, I think we've answered that question there as well. So, from, from the perspective of the common challenges that you see within the lawyer in practice, as it relates to helping them find their wellness or their peak performance arena. Is that a combination of— you've sort of talked about mindset and bottling things down. What are some of the other tips that you help people find that balance?

Look, awareness is kind of the first key for everything and anything. One of the things that sometimes lawyers are very unaware of is this negativity bias that we almost get trained in as to be able to do our job as lawyers. So, you know, we look for what's wrong all the time so that we can fix it, or we look for what could go wrong so that we can avoid it. That's really our job. Our job is to, yeah, be those kind of warning signs for our clients. So a lot of the work that I do is about building awareness of that bias and that type of, I suppose, looking at the world. so that lawyers can have choice, so that they can use it as a tool rather than as a way of thinking. And I think that's a big one for lawyers because we— I've seen lawyers take it into their family life, their home life, their friendships, and they become generally negative or pessimistic. Yeah. So if I could, you know, if I could wave a wand over every lawyer I know and just you know, make them aware of that. I think that alone will make a massive difference. Yeah.

Another question, and I know you do have clients across the globe. One of the questions being asked is, is there— how is it being a lawyer in Australia different from that of being in the US? Do you have a perspective on that?

You know, I haven't seen too many differences in the way that we think and in the way that we show up in our practices and in the world. In fact, to be honest, there's like a cultural, a global culture around the legal profession, which is really interesting. It's kind of transcending borders, at least in the Western world. You know, that's certainly the theme that I've noticed. Mm-hmm. You know, that ambition, that drive, that, you know, insecurity, that imposter syndrome, that perfectionism, that negativity bias, it seems to be a common thread amongst— I mean, there's always going to be the smaller kind of nuances that are going to be different across economies and cultures and things like that, but generally speaking, we seem to share a common culture, which is interesting.

Yeah. Another question that's just coming up is, how could lawyers separate work from their life in an easier way? How do they sort of segment— I don't know whether that's quite the right word.

Yeah, compartmentalize. And yeah, that's a big, that's a big one, and that's one that I work with a lot of lawyers to do, because I think what happens a lot of the time is people get overwhelmed with the amount of work that they have whilst they're at work, and then they take that with them in their minds when they're at home. And so in the mind, Because your mind doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. If you're constantly, you know, ruminating and dwelling over work whilst you're not at work, you're still working.

Yes.

Even though you're not in the office or in front of your computer, your mind thinks you're still working, which sucks energy, which, you know, takes a lot of effort and causes burnout. A lot of the time that happens. Yeah, same. And it comes from this fear of, I don't want to you know, make a mistake. I don't want to let people down. I don't want to be exposed. So I'm going to constantly think about my work to make sure I haven't missed anything, you know. And so that continues well after working hours. And, and because we know lawyers generally work long hours anyway, it doesn't give us that much of, of respite. So some of the things that I sort of help lawyers do is to use anchors and triggers to train the mind to switch off and move from one kind of space to another. Some people, you know, and they get to choose what that might be, and we elicit those anchors and we kind of embed them into our physiology and our psychology so that when it happens, it's unconscious and you've moved over to, you know, you're still going to get every now and then this uh-oh feeling, but you'll be aware of it because on a neurological level, you've been able to switch over. So as an example, you know, some lawyers use their tie if they're a man and And the minute they take off their tie, something happens neurologically and they've switched over to home life or whatever comes after work. Some people use like a traffic light if they're traveling the same way to work every day, and then when they cross that traffic light, there's a trigger neurologically where they move over. But ultimately, it's a state management skill.

Yeah.

It's that ability to pick up On what you're feeling and when you're feeling it and to manage your state and choose the state that you want to be in. And that's a teachable thing.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm just, I'm having flashbacks to an incident when I've always worked from home as a coach and having the agency that I have. And I remember Rory coming in and, you know, how kids sort of do that and they look up at you and I got that. Mommy, you don't play with me anymore.

Oh, I know.

He was like, ouch. Really, really hit home for me. And that was just prior to what would have become a potential burnout moment again for me. So lucky enough, he's 17 and he's grown up beautifully. That was the trigger for me to actually shut the door to the office.

Oh.

Time and not go back and forwards in it and just keep checking, you know, that I'll just check this, I'll just check that, or ding, you know, that—

No, you actually have to be really consciously aware of this stuff because our default is to go back to checking and to be worried and to stress because remember we want to survive. And so one of the things that I do, for example, when I, you know, when I finish working because I now work from home all the time, is I leave my phone. I don't take my phone outside of the office, the space. And I definitely don't take it into my bedroom, and it's— I only use it when I'm here, unless of course I'm, you know, making calls for other reasons. Because if I do take it out of here, I mean, I'm still in work mode. So leaving it here has become my trigger to switch over, to move over to the other part of my life.

Got a couple of questions, a couple of other questions that have come in. Do the courts run differently between Australia and US?

It's a wide question in terms of in what way. I mean, there'd be definitely— there'd be differences in the processes and the systems, but I dare say the culture is probably very, very similar. But there'd be differences. I mean, even in Australia, there'd be differences depending on which court you're in, you know, in terms of how they run. So it just depends on the jurisdiction.

Yeah, we've got another question as it relates to— and I think this ties back into the same, you've answered this question as it relates to culture— but one of the questions that came in was, is there a less stressful type of law to practice? Which is an interesting question.

Look, I'm sure there is. I'm sure there would be. It just depends, I suppose, on whether or not you like that type of law too. I mean, some people love litigation, they love being in court, they love that battling. Other people like transactional work where it's just them. Depends on your personality. Like, some people are more introverted and they just like to be sitting behind their desk and writing contracts and reviewing things without having to have that dialogue. You know, I was more of an extrovert, so I really liked being in the courtroom. There was that kind of buzz that went with litigation. Yeah. And so to answer that question, I suppose if you were more of that introvert and like to work alone and independently, and you were doing transactional work, if I was to put you in a courtroom kind of setting, that would cause stress for you. The other way around is if you like that kind of environment, and I was to change that environment, put you somewhere where you're alone all the time, just reviewing contracts, that could cause stress for you. So I don't know if there's an area that's more or less stressful. Probably, you know, family law, I'd say everybody has that kind of idea that family law is very stressful, and that's true because you're dealing with a lot of conflict and toxicity and really difficult situations. So that, I don't think anyone would say, oh, it's a piece of cake, no problems. But in terms of an area that's less or more stressful, I'd say it depends on your own metaprogramming and how you are Um, yeah, what you enjoy and don't enjoy.

I think as it relates to that sort of differences of natural skills or giftedness, I talk a lot about the, um, natural giftedness and what you do effortlessly. Um, and that comes from just studying yourself and understanding yourself really, really well and knowing what you actually enjoy doing and what you're actually good at. Um, versus if you go into an environment, where it's not comfortable for you, it does become more stressful. So it tends to, um, balance out from and comes from that place of who you are and what you enjoy doing. What are you naturally—

And what, what are your values too? You know, what's important to you? Knowing that will help you decide what will cause you less stress. Yeah.

And just a question here, and this, um, is definitely a question for you. Um, Would you figure your preference to be on the DA side or a public defender side?

So, I'm assuming by public defender you mean more in the— not so much in criminal law only, but being in— working in the public sphere as opposed to the private sphere. I think that's what that means. I've never worked in the public in the public sphere, as in I've never worked— here in Australia we call it legal aid— and I've never really done that. I've also— I've always ever been in the private space, so, you know, working for private clients. I don't know if I would— I don't really have a view about what my preference would be because my, you know, I don't think I would have minded working in the public system. In fact, I applied for a couple of positions in the public system, but I never sort of never got in so that I can compare, I suppose, and see where I would thrive the most. But I have a friend who her whole entire career she was a public defender and, and that really suited her personality and what, what she enjoyed to do. So I guess to answer that question, I really would need to experience both in order to be able to say for sure. Yeah,

we're just coming towards the— getting closer to the end of the show.

Already?

I know, it's gone so fast, hasn't it? Which has been fantastic. We've had such a great flurry of questions from the audience today, which has been fantastic. Thank you very, very much. We do have about 8 or 9 minutes, so I'd love you to share some of your tips. And I know you've talked about that awareness being one of the key elements. And we've certainly talked about being in that observer mode, which I would imagine fits into awareness. We've also talked about regular check-ins. So I'd love to just— because I think that ties into some of the questions that Peter was asking as it relates to coaches that coach other people, etc. So share some thoughts on that, please.

So I suppose My major tips about being aware or being in charge is having those regular check-ins with yourself in different forms. So sometimes it just might mean that you're meditating at some stage during the day so that you can turn your attention inwards and just check in and see what's going on. Mm-hmm. Sometimes that means getting coached as well so that someone else could help you do that check-in because It's sometimes difficult, like I said before, see yourself swinging a bat. Even if you look in a mirror, you're not going to get that, you know, that you're still going to look at it from your own model of the world. Mm-hmm. So what that does, those regular check-ins, is it builds that awareness muscle. And if you practice that enough times, awareness becomes an unconscious thing where you don't have to stop and go, I've got to be aware right now. It just You just, all of a sudden, you notice things. Like you go, oh, OK, I'm losing it right now. What can I do to calm myself down? How can I be a bit more resourceful? And so that process becomes almost an unconscious default in itself.

Mm-hmm.

That's the beauty of building the awareness muscle. So it's, you move from that, you know, if we, if we talk about the learning cycle, you move from that, you know, being consciously skilled, So consciously aware that you need to be aware to becoming unconsciously skilled in awareness. I'll give you an example. The other day I was driving and I got to where I needed to go and I realized that I don't remember how I got there.

Mm-hmm.

So that kind of moment in time when I got there, I just went, oh my God, what did I miss out on the way here? What did I not see? What did I not hear? My kids would have been talking to me in the back, I don't have any memory of how I got to this place. But that instant moment of awareness then made me reflect on my life. And I started to think, where else am I driving on autopilot? What else am I missing out on in my life that I'm not seeing and I'm not hearing? That thought process has now led me to be aware of those moments in my day so that I'm like, am I driving on autopilot right now, or could I stop and be more attentive? So it just kind of, it becomes a way of being.

Yeah. A couple of other questions which we'll just answer quickly. Do you feel that law is still a good profession to get into?

I do, which is why I am so passionate about helping lawyers. A lot of the times, the good lawyers, the ones that have the right motives and the right intentions, leave the law. because they feel like they are broken. The problem is the system itself is broken and it's causing incongruencies and it's making other lawyers feel like they don't fit in. But they are the lawyers we need to keep. They're the ones that could change things and challenge the status quo. I think it's a brilliant profession. It's just lost its way a little bit. And I think it's very salvageable.

Yep, beautiful. One of the other questions is, do you feel you are a better coach or a better lawyer?

Ah, interesting question. Um, I think I feel more aligned in this moment in time with being a coach, and that I think naturally would lend itself to feeling better at what I do, as in more effective at what I do now. I was, you know, I was a good lawyer, you know, because I had those emotional intelligence skills, especially towards, you know, once I did a lot of work on myself. And but in terms of where do I feel more aligned and congruent, it's in what I do now.

Yeah. And having the conversations that we've had and the time that we've had to share in those conversations, I would very much say that Lara's quest is to actually create better lawyers because she knows what the good is that those great lawyers can create for those families, for those situations. And if you can help them remain in that industry for the length of time that the industry needs them, um, and they can have the balance, uh, in their family lives.

That's exactly what I meant to say, Sally. Thank you so much for saying it for me.

You're welcome. To me, that boozes out of You certainly expressed in the conversation that we've certainly had. Yeah, it's been—

Thank you.

Thank you. Let me just check the— yep, more comments. So that's coming through. So you also talked about, and I know this is in your downloadable that you've got for people today, which they can get from the link that we'll put in the bottom for the show. And you also talked about rituals. And now I love Great. I love success rituals. I have several of my own. What are some tips that you have for your lawyers as it relates to some of those simple success rituals?

Yes, my number one tip has to be setting daily intentions. You know, that's that kind of— for me, that's that secret sauce. So getting your mind focused before your day starts, or close to it if you've got little kids, about You know, how do you want to show up today? Because where your mind goes, or where your, your, your focus goes, your energy flows. So I think my number one tip would be, you know, when you wake up in the morning, think about your day and choose how you want to show up that day and set that as an intention so that your mind knows where you want it to go. Otherwise, we kind of follow— We follow our mind wherever it wants to take us, and most of the time it's wired where it wanders. And if you do leave the mind to wander, it's going to wander towards threats, danger, negative. It's just the way we're wired to survive. So you've got to, you've got to be in charge of that and set your intention. If I was to give another tip for success, especially when, you know, we are in this fast-paced kind of world and profession is to take moments and pause. You know, there's no— you're not going to lose anything, you're not going to miss out on anything, things will still be there. But there's 30 seconds available to you, I guarantee, between tasks, between meetings, between whatever, which is just— it's— I can't remember the author, but is on the tip of my tongue. He describes this as the third space. I wish I could remember his name now, but I might send those details to you. But anyway, where you can calibrate what just happened and what you need to do or how you need to be for the next thing that's about to happen, rather than carrying the emotion of whatever has just happened with you into the next thing, and then carrying the accumulation of that with you to the next thing. So the power of the pause. Giving yourself those 30 seconds to recalibrate, go again. They would be, I think, my 2 top tips.

Beautiful. And Peter's just said thank you for those tips because that's certainly— Pleasure. On his way. So I'm going to say thank you very, very much for joining us and sharing those tips today. Thank you. We have another exciting guest on next week, which will be a perfect flow-on from your, your topic today. Thank you, Lara. And that's Christine Weber talking on gratitude. Nice. Next week, it's Thanksgiving. And so a very, very relevant topic for next week's show on gratitude,

right,

which in itself is another success ritual to embody and enable you to move through life in a fluid manner. So thank you everyone for joining us today. Thank you so much for all of the great questions you've asked and the fluidity that enabled Lara and I to chat because we could have continued for probably another 50 minutes.

We normally do.

Peter just flicked up the name Adam Fraser. Was that who you were thinking of?

Oh yes, The Third Space. That's exactly— thank you for that.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you, everybody. We'll let you get on with the rest of your day and your evening, and I look forward to sharing more time with you on next week's show. Thank you.

Thank you, Sally, and thank you all. Lovely to be here.

Bye. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining us. I trust you got some inspirational tips to move you forward. See you next Thursday at 7 PM Eastern for more Success Secrets. Secrets exposed.