Podcast 2 - Feb 1st 2025 - Values
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You are listening to The Thriving Lawyer with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. I'm Kathleen, a highly experienced lawyer and an International Coaching Federation accredited coach.
And I am Carla. Like Kathleen, I am an ICF certified coach and I have worked with top leaders and professionals, many of them lawyers, at some of the world's biggest organizations.
My focus is on using evidence based approaches to help my clients thrive at work and in the rest of their lives. Together,
we bring you the Thriving Lawyer podcast, a podcast filled with ideas and inspiration, as well as practical tips to help you thrive as a lawyer and in the rest of your
life. Let's get into it.
All right. Welcome to episode two of season two of The Thriving Lawyer with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. We're super pleased to be back with you today for what's hopefully going to be quite an interesting discussion around the importance of knowing and living your values, essentially looking at that values and wellbeing connection and why values clarity actually matters.
It matters for everyone, but we're going to be particularly focusing on why it matters for lawyers and how that clarity is absolutely essential to help you thrive as a lawyer. But before we get into it, Carla, let's just check in and tell me, how have you been this week? What have you been doing this week to make sure that you're looking after your wellbeing?
Hello, Kathleen. I've been really well, thank you. And I'm really excited to this conversation today. It's one of my favourite topics to dive into. Look, this week has been all about adjusting and finding balance. So my kids are back to school, a new term, a new year. So a lot of after school activities.
Lots of sports. They're quite active. So I'm just figuring out, how to juggle everything between coaching, running the Thriving Lawyer, being a mum and experimenting, with what works and what doesn't and looking for balance or creating balance, at the moment. So speaking about values and alignment, It's stopping my mind at this point in time as I'm readjusting, to a new year and a new schedule.
Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Because it would be so easy to just get lost in the busyness of it all. Absolutely. And how have you been? How has your weekend been?
Oh, look, also between the lawyering and the thriving lawyer, there has been a lot on, but I've really been trying to focus on making sure that I don't forget to take the breaks that I need. I think that a little bit earlier in the week, I'd gone a little too hard. So by Wednesday I caught myself and really made sure, I had a session with a personal trainer on Wednesday and she really pushed me with the weights and trying new things, which has been good.
But then to cope with that, I've had to really do extra yoga sessions and lots of walks because otherwise I was getting so stiff. I could hardly move! So it's a matter of taking that time out as well to recover. That's been important. But look let's get started and right into this conversation because like you, I really enjoy this topic.
And what I find is that you really can't do deep coaching without exploring this area quite often, . Values clarity is absolutely essential. I suppose before we go any deeper into it, I probably should define what it is that I mean by values in this context. And when we're talking about what are our most core or fundamental values, what we're really talking about is our deepest beliefs and desires about the world, about other people, about ourselves.
And that clarity matters because when we have a really deep understanding of what our values and strengths are, it's really easy to know what to say no to. We have a compass as we navigate all the different challenges in our lives, and we're able to then really improve our wellbeing and our ability to thrive.
Carla, is there anything that you'd add to that definition?
Yeah, I love what you say it's really important to to know our values because give that clarity and guide our life, like being that compass, it guides us towards what it truly matters, right? And I think one thing is to gain clarity on what their values are.
And the other thing is to align our lives, like making the changes and enhance our lives to live according to our values. Yeah, so for lawyers in particular, values clarity is really critical, right? For the legal profession that tends to reward external markers of success, partnership, billable hours, but those don't necessarily align with personal fulfillment for some, yeah, I'm very excited for us to dive a bit deeper into, why it's so important to bring values, clarity to the forefront.
That's perhaps a really good segue to the next question that I had, which is, you've coached so many high level professionals, right? You've done it for many hundreds of hours.
A lot of them have been lawyers. They've also been high level managers and executives. When you think about the role of, and the clarity or the, even the impact that this work could have, do you have examples of how that impact has played out?
Sure. I think when individuals align their lives to their values, they often see dramatic.
improvements in their well being. Like, I have an example here for a client that was like struggling with burnout. And then once, they were prioritizing work over, the expense of their health and relationships, by discovering their values, like with health, family, and creativity, they started making small shifts, carving out time to move, exercise, setting boundaries around work, and over time, their energy and their passion returned. They didn't necessarily need to change their work, they just created a small space in their schedule. But it was like gaining the clarity that actually my health matters, my relationship matters, and being creative matters as well.
It gave them the ability to see. what was important.
So what I'm really hearing there is that at its essence, what it's about is really stepping back from the busyness of the everyday and particularly, lawyers are, I think it's fair to say quite often incredibly time poor. There are incredible demands on them in terms of their time.
From their clients the way the profession operates can be highly stressful and that's understandable that it's really easy to just get caught in that hamster wheel of the every day and to lose sight of all of those things that are important to you or even forget what it is that you most value.
And we as coaches see when we work with our clients, the impact that it can have . And I think, some people think, Oh, it has to be a really dramatic change. But what I'm hearing you say is that no, actually that awareness could mean little changes.
Yeah, absolutely.
So perhaps a good place to kind of segue is to is the different kind of values and a critical distinction between what you could call extrinsic and intrinsic values. Really, that's just fancy words for Extrinsic values are those values that come from outside of us, those values that we have taken on because of the culture around us, perhaps from our families, perhaps from standards in broader society, and even the values of our profession, those that are dominant, and they could vary in different parts of the profession.
For example, the values that are predominant might be quite different, if you're a lawyer working in a social justice context versus being senior in a private law firm or even being in house. Or a barrister too, the norms might be different there, some simple examples of ones that we commonly see crop up in the legal context is, it is a profession that comes along with high status.
And so perhaps that status or the success it might be the case that sometimes lawyers can get caught up in ideas of success that they've just inherited, that they haven't really consciously worked and defined what it is that it means to them. An example might be You know, trying to get up the partnership chain now for a lot of people that's a fantastic option and that might work and be absolutely reflective.
We're not saying anything against that. It's just the fact that people might be doing that unconsciously. So really what an extrinsic value, if you can think about those values outside of yourself, you might have more awareness about whether you are truly choosing your values yourself. So if we contrast extrinsic values with intrinsic values, they're the ones that we choose ourselves.
They're growth oriented. We really own them because they have been the result of very deliberate reflection. We're not just living somebody else's life, which. Carla, I'm interested in your thoughts, but with the lawyers that you've coached, but certainly not just in my own coaching, but my experience with over 15 years in the profession.
So many people who have gotten to a point in their career and they are just going through the motions, they're trying to live up to other people's standards. They might be working excessive hours and chasing an idea of what it means to be a successful lawyer.
That really isn't aligned with who they are or what they want to be, but they haven't taken that time or they've just gotten lost in the busyness of it all.
Carla have, is that, does that resonate with you? Am I wrong? What do you think?
No, absolutely. I think, we started going through the motions, like you say, leaving the the values that we maybe had a long time ago, maybe when we were, in uni, when you wanted to start the profession, want to achieve all of those things and we get, we forget to review, to go back there, like to say, is that still go back and question, are these still the things that are aligned to the values, the life that I want to live today, and when there is a mismatch
we usually start feeling drained or unfulfilled and sometimes even resentful, so I think that the real work is stepping back and asking yourself, am I living my values? Is my life aligned to the values that, is truly important for me today? It's usually, it's quite useful to ask ourselves every now and then, even if you think you have values clarity, one thing is to know your values, but the other thing is to make sure that you're putting them into action, revising them maybe even periodically to assess and then making conscious adjustments.
What I'm hearing that it's it's really about that conscious reflection. And I just want to make one qualification, cause we've been talking about intrinsic and extrinsic values. And I want to be really clear that I am not for a moment, here suggesting that those values that come from outside of us, those extrinsic values are necessarily bad.
We are social animals, humans. We belong in communities and societies and the things that we learn from them may be very useful and we may want to reflect on those. It's values that we've got from outside, and then freely choose them. But the difference here that we're talking about is that active reflection and a conscious choice about how it is that we want to live so that we can then begin to take small steps and experiment with what that might look like.
And there may be a gap. That's what we often see because people get too busy, right? They're too busy they're caught up in the day to day life. The demands for lawyers of showing up every day and just getting through can be such a burden that this work is easily lost. I was listening to a pod, another podcast the other week, which I really love, which I think it's called Farewell, with Brad Stuhlberg, who's a performance expert that I really value, and he's got a couple of other people on the show whose names escape me at the moment, but we'll put them in the show notes, but he was talking about a quote that he'd heard from James Clear, which I think is so useful and powerful, where Basically, he said, a useful way to think about the difference between the values that you're living now versus where you want is to imagine that an alien could just observe you for two weeks.
They were looking at the way that you're actually living. What are the values that they would say that you're living by? And then the next step is are they aligned with the values that you want to live by? I think that's so powerful because it gets right to the heart of it. It stopped me in my tracks when I heard that because I thought, wow, okay.
It really brings into clarity. reflection around how you're showing up in the world right now and whether there is that alignment. It could perhaps be intimidating though, or a bit scary. So Carla, what do you think of that?
Yeah, I think it's a really useful tool, like to recalibrate, right? To ask yourself is my life today?
If someone is watching me, is it, is it true? Am I living the way that I want to live? And sometimes it gives us, the, and give ourselves permission, right? To be able to answer that question in a genuine way.
For, for example, if you're pursuing partnership, that might be a hundred percent aligned because you genuinely thrive on intellectual challenge, leadership, and impact, and that's fine. But for others, that might be something that they're pursuing because that's what you do, not because it reflects their deeper, freely chosen, intrinsic values.
I think in the end of the day, it's like it's stopping and just giving, creating a space to reflect and ask yourselves, because you have the answers. But sometimes we don't ask the questions, like we are too busy doing everyday life and showing up to, we just started talking about, routines and all the things that we have to show up, to in our lives.
But yeah and you gave your example I have to remember to stop and break and recover, and make sure that I am doing what is important to me. So yeah, it's a very useful tool.
Okay I agree with all of that and I think that perhaps nicely segues into thinking about the costs when we don't live our values.
What the impact can be. And I think, there's some really common scenarios in legal practice where value conflict occurred and you just gave a really powerful one where somebody might be pursuing, say a partnership track where. They feel that they ought to when really perhaps being an individual contributor is better to them for them.
And that's only one example. There's many, because, for many, as we said, that's absolutely the appropriate track for them. But I think that the big one that comes around is like thinking about what is your definition of success? And if you are living in accordance with somebody else's, perhaps unconsciously, and you haven't really reflected on what's important to you, it's really easy to find yourself languishing really quickly.
Another example might be perhaps you're a lawyer who values learning and you entered law due to the intellectual challenge of it all, but you've been in the same area, you're now very senior, you're feeling like the work is a bit repetitive and you feel a bit bored. We see this, a bit because of the way that specializations so often happens in our profession, and it might even be a total accident of, you've specialized in the area that you were placed in as a graduate.
So if you think about, a lawyer, they're reflecting about their values and feeling really like they're languishing because they don't have that opportunity to learn and grow, might be able to reflect and make really small changes that could have a big impact about little things. Like how could they approach what they're doing right now in a way that they could learn something new, whether that's engaging, for example, with AI and how they can integrate that in an appropriate manner, or even apply different approaches with their clients to try and get better outcomes for them.
There's so many different ways. Another example might be a lawyer who's gone into law for concern about justice. This happens all the time. I think about so many of my law students that I went to law school with, life gets difficult. We end up with obligations, children, families, mortgages, and we might have lost sight of it.
Now it might be very hard, it might not be possible to give up the job and that's not even desirable. Perhaps too, but perhaps you can think about little changes, or it might be a lawyer who values freedom and is looking for flexibility and without that, feeling really trapped.
So this work, like really taking that time and reflecting and actually identifying like what is it most important, what is most important to you and what are the changes that you could start to make is really important.
Carla, in your work, and more broadly, what do you think are the signs that we might see that are indicators that a lawyer might not be living their values, and that, or that they're perhaps languishing as a result?
Yeah, it's such an important point, Kathleen because values misalignment isn't always obvious, right?
Because it often shows up suddenly before we even realize what's happening, like some of the examples that, that you that you gave but one big sign, I think, is that lingering sense of dissatisfaction, right? Everything seems really good on paper, like you've checked all the right boxes.
You've got a great job. You've got promotion, you've got financial security, but some things still feels off, or, burnout, overwork, that is like that sense of being exhausted all the time. Like it comes at spending too much time in things that, actually it doesn't align with your deeper values.
Constantly feeling like you're. Pushing, but you're never truly fulfilled. It can be the opposite as well. It feels so hard that you got the, you can't move. You freeze, sometimes when a lawyer feels stuck, whether it's in the, in a role or in a firm, or even, just in how they structure their time.
Because often like the internal values are being pulled in one direction, but the external expectations or past conditioning, like they're pulling them in a different direction. So it's for example, someone that really values family but also values career and growth that suddenly gets, stuck between the two, torn in every single day, and without the clarity, that tension can be quite overwhelming.
And that tension might not necessarily go away, right? There's, there might, but with the awareness of those values, you can then begin to really think about how you bring them into life and into action. And if there are trade offs or compromises or prioritization, let's say that you can look at, then perhaps you can lessen the impact of that conflict.
Yeah. The tension is a warning sign, right? I always like to say this is just a warning sign. It's your body, your brain telling you that something is off, and look, we're all busy, we all have different, our professional life and our personal life. But I think what we are trying to say here is like creating awareness, right?
And then being okay, look, this is what I'm doing towards my work. And this is what I'm doing towards my family. Not necessarily that it's going to be dramatic change, but like just at least, be with that tension enough to understand what it is. That you want. Asking yourself questions, attending to that warning sign rather than pushing away and just keep going, let's keep going, doing whatever, we have to do without actually questioning what we are doing.
So what have you observed actually in your clients, like from a concrete perspective, do you get, ever get resistance to this work? Cause I can imagine like it might be really hard sometimes to, or challenging to take that time.
Yeah, I think, look when we started talking about values, sometimes it's actually quite difficult to articulate them.
Like to go and say, or, we've never asked those questions. I don't know, but taking that time and, and slowly creating the reflection and observing. What do I actually, what actually makes me happy, what actually makes me, fulfilled, like one common example that I see in lawyers is like, for example, you deeply value, family and relationships or time with yourself, but you can't prioritize that because of work demands, right?
So you want to be present at home, maybe it's, you want to have dinner with your kids or friends or spend the weekend, with family, but you find yourself constantly working late, checking emails, being pulled into last minute, client requests. So over time that can create an internal conflict, and then you can start feeling like you're, you're failing at both at work and at home.
So the tension can lead to guilt, frustration. Resentment at times, that's quite a common one that I see often happening. But what the value works can do is it's hold on. Let's create a moment here. I do value family. I do value work. And how can I make those two important areas of my life to coexist?
You've just made me think of a question. You started to answer it, but I think there's more there. Which is I can imagine lawyers, they're pessimistic by nature. We talk about that a lot in The Thriving Lawyer, about how we're the only profession that's really trained for our pessimism and rewarded for it, right?
We can be skeptical analytical. people. And so I can imagine some lawyers saying to us, but Kathleen and Carla, this is all very well, but I have those clients. I have those demands on me. I've got to provide the legal advice or go to court. So I've got these emails coming in constantly. I've got that "busyiness"
what is the point of this work? Because that's just my to do list. That's the demands on me. What would you say to that lawyer? Who's skeptical about this work?
Yeah. So what is most important to you?
Yeah, so your work is important, but if you feel that, if, and by all means, if that is, and if you're happy with that way of living, then that's fine. You don't have to change. If you feel that you feel satisfied and fulfilled what we are talking about is when you were not, when there are different things that you, that, you want to show up strongly in different areas of your life, then the invitation is how do I create boundaries around those things?
Like we all need, some time to recover, so maybe I'm going to work very hard, from eight to five, and sometimes, and here's the, and look, and sometimes we have to work late some nights and sometimes we have to respond to, demanding clients or whatever there might be, but there should be an exception to the rule, not the rule itself.
Yeah, I think an important point here to make is that with this discussion, sometimes it can we can sound like a bit like we're saying, take the foot off the pedal or being anti work, in a way, which is not like that at all, what we find, though, is that, it may very well be.
That achievement is one of your most fundamental values and you are doing everything else in your life in such a way that you are flourishing. The problem comes when people aren't flourishing and they're doing that at the expense because they're not living a life in accordance with all the things that are most important to them and the bits, the various parts of life that they need to thrive.
What often happens is that when you are not flourishing and you started like creating the changes. To align your life to your values, you become stronger at work as well, because, you're more positive, you're, you find answers, or ways of dealing with your everyday, or, you readjust in a way that you become more productive.
Yes, it's something that I can observe even if I get a little tired and I've ignored the other things for a couple of days that are important to me, how much slower or how much brain power, extra brain power it takes just to do the same thing versus when I have been really conscious of the different things that are important to me and looking how I can do it and the energy that I bring, whether it's in my legal work or in the coaching work.
So that's something I've certainly experienced in my own life.
Yeah, Kathleen, and another important point to make here as well is it's using that dissatisfaction as a warning sign, right? And that is, you're dissatisfied enough or you're languishing enough that you are ready to create change.
So there is that readiness for change. And that is a very important aspect of it. Am I ready to create the change in my life now? And in some I see a lot of people showing up for coaching, right? Or having a conversation, the conversation is enough to change their life. Actually, that's a one small part of it.
The magic actually happens outside of the coaching conversation. It's what you're going to do to create the changes that you're looking for.
And it's not always easy, right? Because sometimes we have to say, no, we have to create boundaries.
It's also really important though, to choose the right goals, right?
Because if you haven't reflected on those core values that you intrinsically choose, you consciously choose what's most important to you. , you end up picking the wrong goals, you're doing the wrong things, you're taking the wrong path. It's one of the reasons why New Year's resolutions fail.
We're right at the beginning of February. I think we're recording this on the 1st of February. All the evidence shows most of you will have given up on your New Year's resolutions by now. And maybe one useful reflection is to think about is were they connected to what's most important to you?
And how might you really step back and reflect on those most important values so that you can begin to create high level goals that perhaps are much more connected to your values?
Yeah, that's a great point, right? Looking at your goals and do I actually want to do this? Are they, aligned to what is most important to me?
And sometimes, like you said, like there is some external things that we are pursuing as long as we can internalize and decide, okay, that is what I want. The legal profession is pulling me in this direction. Is this a direction that I want to go? And the answer might be yes. And that's fine, right?
And it's not even talking about the legal profession as a whole. It might be, but it might be your particular pocket of it. Are you in the right place? That might be a choice. There might be, decisions that have to be made there.
Yeah. We focus on all of that in The Thriving Lawyer and I really want to emphasize, we begin so consciously with this reflection about values because of its deep foundational nature, that really all the doing, all the goals, everything that comes after is so dependent on this fundamental work about thinking about what is most important to you. And I remember once when I was very new to coaching, I just on my coaching certification.
I had a conversation with a very good friend of mine who's very academically minded, very skeptical. And I was talking about values work with him. And he said, but Kathleen, I contain multitudes to quote, I think, Walt Whitman. How do I know what my values are? There's so many why should I do this?
There's no real essence to myself. I'm a product of culture and society and I'm constantly changing. How is this of any use for me?
And that question has remained with me for five years because I've, I don't think I answered it satisfactorily at the time. I tried to, but I was very new, but I feel much more ready now to really stand by it and say, yes, there is no real authentic self in the sense of it's dropped from the sky and lands in your lap.
We create it. But that said, it's that action of consciously choosing and identifying those values of many that you want to prioritize in your life, because how Can you possibly direct how you show up in your world, how you behave unless you have that clarity around the values that you want to live by?
How does that sound Carlo? Yeah. Yeah, it's very important and look, there are, it's not saying that, if you don't have the clarity, you're, you're necessarily going to be languishing, sometimes people do. Somewhat falls, in a career and they find satisfaction in whatever they are doing, right?
Cause they are very good at okay, so how do I make this most, interesting and fulfilling for me right? And it does happen. For that person, like maybe they value their optimism and they are very good at creating that for themselves.
But a lot of the times that's not the case. A lot of the times we are feeling dissatisfied. We are, and then we started blaming the outside world. And that's where it's necessary to go back and say, Oh, all right is there room to investigate here?
So what then for a lawyer who's maybe languishing a bit or they're doing okay, but they want to do better and they really haven't engaged with this values work before. What might be some simple practical ways that they could try and start to get some values clarity?
Look, start with reflection, right? You create some space in your day to just Ask yourself questions. The common one is what is most important to you and this might sound like an easy question, but it can feel very awkward first, to honestly answer, like values are often taken for granted and like you, you assume you know them, but actually naming them.
It's a whole other business. So when you pause and reflect, you might be surprised what comes up. It could be family, it could be growth, it could be making an impact, it could be creativity, or something else entirely. So write down whatever comes to mind without any judgment, but just honest. Honest, like personal integrity.
What do you really care about? What is important to you? Another useful question is thinking about it's your 100th birthday, right? So what do you want people to say about you, to say about your life and the values that you lived by? This is such a powerful way to step back and look at the big picture.
So imagine somewhere else summarize in your life. What would you hope that they would say about you, what you stood for? It's a more optimistic version of the eulogy question about what you would want people to say about your eulogy, but it's more celebratory. I like that.
Yeah. Yeah. I used it to ask you're in your bed death, but I was like let's just celebrate. We're like, we see a lot of people living up to 100. My grandmother's turning 100 this year. It's okay, so what, when we are talking about this speech and we are talking about, what are we going to be saying about her?
And this is such an eyeopening exercise because it really reveals, whether or not you're living a life the way that you want to live in the legacy that you want to leave behind. Another common question is when do you feel most fulfilled and energized? Think about the moments that you felt truly alive, engaged proud.
What were you doing?
Yeah. I think that it's really a great one. And I think that you could even be a little bit more specific, like what, when are the times at work as a lawyer that you're most motivated or energized? Because when I think about my own career. I can very clearly see that for me, it's about that really engaged conversations with clients about options that they have to communicate the advice.
I love those discussions where I really feel that, I'm actually using my coaching skills in a way to facilitate. A journey with, I don't like that word, but to facilitate, I can't think of a better one right now. The, to facilitate that journey to help the clients really get where they need to go.
The other thing that I love is that satisfaction of, having had a legal problem that was everywhere and messy and not knowing the options and having created. a crafted advice that is really logical, very beautifully written, that feeling of satisfaction of basically having created order out of the disorder.
I love that feeling of the reward that comes with that when you've gone through the chaos to find the answer.
And so what value would that be? What value would that be for you? Oh, that's interesting. Because when I think about the most important values for me, it's learning. And so I suppose there that really connects with the writing part connects with what I've learned, how I've solved the problem.
But then one of my other most important values is Service and connection is the third one. So you can really see with that engagement with the clients, it's all about that connection with other humans. And because, when I also, I probably should add, it's also the talking about legal problems with my colleagues, the other lawyers in my team.
I work remotely, but I'm always on teams having discussions about things. And I love mentoring the junior lawyers. And so we have really engaging conversations and I, that rewards me in my most fundamental value of feeling connected, but also in service. That's why I do now work part time for a private new model law firm, but I'm seconded back in government and I was a public servant for many years.
And the whole reason that I chose that kind of career because public law was important to me. I saw the service. I wanted to contribute not just to a profit motive, but working in an environment where there was a bigger public purpose where I could see my work mattering in some way, whether it was really small or big in government administration, particularly when you see what's happening in other countries at the moment.
That stuff matters. And to me, if I feel like my work doesn't matter in some way, like it doesn't have to be grand, it can be just one client with one, one action with one member of the public that it will affect, or it could be more macro. If I don't feel like I'm having that kind of impact. And that's also with coaching too.
It's why I love coaching, right? Is seeing that difference, seeing that impact, but also connecting with others. It's funny because now I've worked primarily remotely since the pandemic and it's been a game changer in what it's enabled me to do. In terms of bringing my values into action. But one of the things I have to be really careful about is that connection.
And I never it's very rare, let's say, that I feel disconnected. And that might only be if I have a very, a day without many meetings, and perhaps my colleagues are not around, and I'm deep in a complicated advice where I haven't talked to people. That can be good for a while because I'm getting that intellectual challenge.
But if I'm not getting that connection. That can be a bit of a warning sign that I have to take some action to fulfill that value in the moment. And that could be as simple as giving someone a call and just having a chat.
Yeah. So much there Kathleen? Yeah. I think it's covered a lot. No, it was super interesting.
It's really nice to see the example that you gave, like working on a challenging advice because there was all three values happening at the same time, like the learning, the connection and the service, right? Yeah. And then I love just like what you just finished like off saying, like the balance, like being able, having the values, clarities helps you go and ask the question.
Okay. So I am serving here. I'm in learning, but Hey, I'm not connecting with anyone. So let me just pick up the phone and, and balance all the values, make sure you're aligning, fulfilling all of them. And so it's, that's quite common as well. Like sometimes we put all our effort in one Bucket here and then we forget that there are other areas to be paying attention to.
And they're not always stuck in time too. Like I, just to go back to the example of my own, those were the three values that for a very long time, if somebody, I did the values working, coaching myself. Starting, I think, back, oh, it must have been, 2016, 2017, or around there. And for a long time, that's what I would have said.
Those are my three values. And they still are, but I have added health in. And that's because I'm so intellectually minded that it's very easy for me to be in my head, and I forget about the physical side. And, as I've gotten older, I'm in my forties now, things just don't work quite the way that they did.
I've got to look after my health in a way that I didn't have to before and I think that awareness for me particularly with, a few issues around my health that I've had to really pay attention to, have really changed the way that I see that and it's funny how now that I am prioritizing that and there is the motivation and the importance and I've recognized it in that core value, it really has.absolutely changed my behavior on a fundamental level and I'm not perfect. It doesn't happen all the time, but when I fall off the rails, I remind myself and I can pick it back up.
That's such an important point, right? Being is important. And even when we're talking about values, like how do we look after ourselves to show up to our values because yeah, like there is a some sort of for everybody and that might be different for each person, like there is something like, what do we need to function, in our biology, in our bodies, right? What is it that our body needs to be able to, and there would be some version of rest, some version of movement,
All of which we also really focus on the whole package throughout the Thriving Lawyer. So we'll put the link in the show notes, but if you're interested in going deeper in this, we really encourage you to check out the Thriving Lawyer course. It's not available yet, but we will be launching soon. Now, before we finish up, because we've still got a bit of ground to cover, but I'm interested in, Carla, your thoughts about in the work that you do with your clients, how you help the clients stay on track a bit more, if they start to fall off track.
Yeah, I think it's asking once you gain clarity, what your values are, it's asking yourself, I myself do weekly, how did I live my value of learning? This week, how did I leave my value of impact, and sometimes and connection, right? So if there wasn't, like you said, I haven't had time to catch up with my friends or, I haven't been very present with my family.
So what can I do next week to change that? It's not to beat ourselves up if we haven't actually done, fulfilled that value. Sometimes things are different, right? We've been pulled in a different direction, but it gives us an opportunity to show up and say, okay, so how can, how next week, how can I show up differently to fulfill that value?
So it's, I guess it's a constant check in, right? Making sure that you were there, that you are making the commitments to show up to your values on, daily or weekly basis. So maybe it's not even, it's that point we made it not necessarily like massive steps.
So for example, if you're the lawyer like me who values service, I know that sometimes I can lose track of that, it's difficult to see in the midst of yet another. Client request, where it all fits, but, rather than getting bogged down in that paperwork and the details of the advice, what can help is like for me to step back and think about the bigger picture and how that work might contribute.
So it's just like a little example of how that could actually work.
I love the concept of having a check in, at the end of your day. How was my day today? How do you do that in your own life? I usually have in my work, I have a check in the morning. Like I'm, cause I work from home.
So it's very important to create some sort of separation, right? My life, it's all here in one place. So when I, step into my office, I check in. So what, what am I grateful for? What is my intention for today? What would I like to create? How would I like to say when I'm checking out that my day was about, so I make that very clear, and then I create space in my calendar for the things that I'm saying is important to exist.
Like I live by my calendar. We are having this. discussion before. I'm very color, color oriented, very driven by the calendar. And Kathleen has a different approach, right? Like you remember the things without having to write them all down. And then at the end of the day, the same thing, the checkout, how was it today?
What happened is sometimes things, unexpected things happen that I hadn't, I couldn't see, how did I reprioritize? What was most important, what, in asking the questions, what really fulfilled me today. And that's the, that small, roughly only takes about, 10 minutes maximum in the beginning and the end of the day, but it really gives me the sense of clarity.
And when, and especially it's helpful when I am not feeling well or when I'm like investigating what that is. So we're really getting to know ourselves and how we function.
So those check ins are one really important thing. Another really important thing I'd like to add is that small steps, right? I think it fits in with the check in, but it's a little bit different because it's actually more about the changes that you make once you have this awareness of your values. And I think, there's a lot of stories, it's The fodder for a lot of nonfiction kind of memoirs and books is that, that old kind of stereotype of quitting your job, going to somewhere like Bali or North India, joining an ashram and totally leaving your family or whatever, making like job, massive changes.
Now, there's a time and place for that. We're not saying never, but I think too many people get caught up in. That's the answer when they're feeling that dissatisfaction or that there's that misalignment, but for many of us, and in fact, that might not be possible. You've got the mortgage, you've got the family, you like your job, in fact, that you don't really want to change it like that.
So what do you do then to increase your values alignment, the degree to which you're actually living what's most important to you? And I think one of the key messages that we want to give here is that it might be really small, tiny changes. It might be experimenting. There's a real spirit of experimentation and curiosity that you can bring to this.
So for example, if you're bored, say, you're just feeling like you're treading water in the job. It's not interesting you in the way that it used to. If you value learning, thinking about. How could you look at that anew, like how could you treat it differently at work?
Are there opportunities out there for work, or can you develop, can you integrate it with the rest of your life in a different way? If you have a commute, can you go on walks, for example, or listen to a legal podcast?
How can you manage those external pressures while staying true to your values? Another thing I think is thinking about if you have that clarity about your most important values, how can you start to really build a values based career? So for me, that was really important and that has probably been one of the biggest changes since I started all of this coaching work.
In the last the last few years, I've, I left the public service to pursue some opportunities that came up in this coaching world. I've been studying my Master's of Coaching Psychology. I've been working with you over a year, developing the Thriving Lawyer. Working as a lawyer part time, it all adds to me.
To a way to live those values in a different way. I've been able to deliberately choose how I can learn. Life has been absolutely filled to the brim with learning. The connections, the relationship that you and I have developed over the last few years, as well as in the legal context and other friends, this coaching world has opened up the connections that I have. I'm still able though to connect with my legal colleagues that I work with as well. And those in my personal life. The service element is there for me in both areas, both in my coaching and in the law and even health. Now, my awareness of that has been increased dramatically by this coaching work, but it sits as the underpinning kind of foundation that provides the compass.
And all of that you're sharing, it wasn't a, there was a lot of change, but it was a bunch of small steps, right? Each day. And then today, here we are, like you've, it's, it wasn't a dramatic change. It was a bunch of showing up and asking the question and step by step and making the smaller change.
And then one day when you look back, is that compound interest, right? Okay. I've made the change. So here I am. Yeah. And because, I think then t hat values awareness too. It's that compass. So yes, high level goals and then experimenting with habits. It's a big part of what we do at The Thriving Lawyer, but having that fundamental clarity about the values gives you the flexibility.
Like for me, it's always been those values that are the ultimate compass because then I can change and develop as opportunities arise. I'm not so constricted by concrete goals. I will have this job in five years. It's never been the way I operate. It's more, these are the most important values.
These are the high level goals of kind of the direction I want to go to. How can I then take action and experiment to live those values to bring that to life? But it's also not just something that's out there in the future. Having those check ins, thinking about it as kind of something that You know, that our values in action means that you can make the changes along the way.
And before you know it, you've created something, five years ago, even with that values, clarity, I couldn't have imagined what life is like now. And that's a good thing because that's part of the fun.
Absolutely.
All right. We've covered a huge amount of ground there and it's been a very deep conversation.
So I think it's a great place to wind up. Carla, just any final comments to round that out?
Great space to ask those important questions, and see what shows up. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the conversation, Kathleen. It's, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Thank you. And lawyers we have our guide to thriving in 2025.
We really recommend that you Get that and put it in the show notes because it can give you a bit of a tip on how to get started and we look forward to hearing from you about how you go. Till next time lawyers. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the thriving lawyer with Kathleen Brenner. And Carla Ferraz, if you like it, please share it with your lawyer, friends and colleagues, and tag us on Instagram at @thriving lawyer or on LinkedIn via the links in the show notes. And if you liked what you heard, please drop a review in apple podcasts.
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