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Kathleen: 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.
Carla: 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,
Kathleen: 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.
Hello, welcome to episode nine of Season two of the Thriving [00:01:00] Lawyer Podcast. I'm Kathleen Brenner, and I'm here with my co-host, Carla Ferraz and we're here for another episode in which we are going to talk about growth mindset. But before we do, Carla, hello, how are you? And tell me a little bit more about your week.
Yeah, so these past few weeks actually, there's been a few curve balls, a few wins, and honestly, like a really perfect reminder why mindset is really important, right? So I've found myself stopping to notice how I respond when things don't go according to plan. I love to plan, and on my calendar is all color coordinated, but you know, I think I've been noticing that I have to pause and reflect.
And, and that's often the first step towards growth. Like it gives me agency and ideas, like to realize what is within my control and then to reprioritize and move [00:02:00] on. Because so much of our life, we don't know that it's coming towards us. We can't plan for everything. Like there, there are always a lot of unknowns.
So I guess the mindset, especially the growth mindset is really important. I really relate to that too because I'm in a at a time where there's lots of different competing priorities. My legal practice, my work with you in everything. The thriving lawyer, we are getting at a really exciting stage now where there's a lot happening.
Plus all the things that I'm doing in the personal space around my health in terms of the gym and yoga, there has to be a lot of flexibility and creativity and experimentation. Because I'm constantly grappling with things that are new that I don't know how to do, and then there's conflict between the different goals because they're all demanding of me and I have to try and resolve that.
And the only way that I can do that is by experimenting and trying. And so this is a topic that I [00:03:00] think my understanding of this work has really opened up new possibilities in how I go about that, that I just wouldn't have been aware of, say a couple of years ago. With that in mind, I wanna really emphasize that this concept, a lot of lawyers think that they have a growth mindset or that they already know what it is.
Even if you think that's you, I'd really encourage you to stick around and listen because in my experience, actually this, this place where lawyers can often have a lot of growth to do and adopting and changing that mindset can really change. The way that you practice law, the way that you experience being a lawyer, but also the way you show up more broadly in life generally.
So with that in mind, Carla, why this topic and why now? Yeah. We've heard like from many leaders lately like that really they feel stuck not just in the [00:04:00] day-to-day grind, but in their capacity to lead. Today it's rapid evolving professional landscape. It's like the haters ceiling, not just because of lack of talent or will, but because they're constantly dealing with so many important competing priorities like you've just shared.
And a lot of the time they don't know how to handle them all. In my executive coaching work, I see again and again, like brilliant, experienced professionals holding back, playing it safe or quietly burning out all because this deep down they have this belief that they should have already figured it all out and they can't show the vulnerabilities, they can't ask for help.
They can't show that, that they don't know unless they are a hundred percent sure. But the, and here's the thing. The challenges we are facing today, we haven't never faced before, like the pressure [00:05:00] to be more creative, to innovate the rise of ai, the tech enabled service that is all around us. The demand for all of that, the meant for a different kind of leadership.
And, and I think the kind of leadership is not the one rooted in having all the answers, but it's the willingness to learn to adapt that the spirit of experimentation that we discussed before. And that's so true for lawyers as well, and that's where a growth mindset becomes essential. Not just for personal development, but really to help us navigate the landscape that.
It's here. Uncertainty. It helps us build resilience and leading others through it all. Is this something that you're seeing in the legal world as well? Oh, absolutely. It's interesting you talking about some of the executive coaching that you do generally, and the scene that comes [00:06:00] across is this is something that all professionals are grappling with, right?
So this is not specific to lawyers in that sense. What I think is that I wouldn't be surprised if the challenge is even greater for lawyers because we are, as professionals, trained to be experts in our particular field. The field that we're in is known as being hyper competitive in a lot of workplaces.
I'm not saying that's universal, but there is a dominant cultural element where that I think that might play a role. I think that pressure to be the expert and to have the answers can be a very heavy one. And I've seen particularly junior practitioners suffer from that because they put unrealistic pressure on themselves to already have all the answers, but that's not really the way that we [00:07:00] have to operate.
Now, obviously we need as lawyers to. Service our clients. We've got duties to our clients to act in the best interest of them. We've got obligations that if we don't have an expertise or the expertise in a particular area, that we don't go beyond the boundaries of that in terms of the advice that we give.
But nevertheless, from the day to today, I think that there's a huge role in accepting that we don't have all the answers immediately. And so how can we shift that and go, how can we find out or who can we talk to? What is the expertise that we can draw on the other? Just the point in that it's not just this idea that we have to have all the answers, but I think that there's a, perhaps even often unconscious belief through the way that we're schooled, the way that we trained when we go to university, the cultures in our workplaces of perfectionism, that if we make a mistake, there's gonna be some catastrophic [00:08:00] consequence.
Okay. And I think that can really hold lawyers back and that can be quite difficult to deal with because our work can matter. So it's important that we get things right, but how do we balance that with the fact that mistakes are gonna be inevitable in some way? So look, it's a really interesting space and I'm really looking forward to seeing how we go about discussing it for the rest of this podcast.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So let's start with a definition. What is growth mindset anyway? So growth mindset is a belief that your abilities and intelligence are not fixed traits. They can be developed through dedication, effort, and the right strategies, and an openness to feedback as well. So it's an understanding that where you are now is simply a starting point, not the final destination.
So this mindset encouraging continuous learning and improvement. It's really [00:09:00] crucial, like to embrace that journey of growth no matter how challenging it is, and accepting that starting point. It's a really critical aspect to adopt the growth mindset. I might not have this skill yet recognizing that we all begin somewhere with strengths, with the weaknesses that we might have, the knowledge gap and, but all of those, that opportunities for improvement.
They allow us to approach the challenge with curiosity, with resilience rather than fear or dis encouragement. I love that you just shared in, in the legal world, it's so competitive. So it's not about comparing ourselves to others, but it's understanding that the progress is made by consistently building on our current abilities regardless of where you begin.
So I think when you adopt a growth mindset. Failure. It's no longer something that you avoid or fear. [00:10:00] Instead, it becomes a valuable source of data that you are gathering data that informs where you're going to put your effort, your future effort. Setbacks are not roadblocks. The field that is gonna drive us to improve and adapt it, every mistake offers a lesson.
Every mistake becomes a stepping stone to a greater understand and success. It most importantly is the confidence. Like it doesn't come from knowing everything or to be perfect using the perfectionism tend here, right? It comes from the willingness to learn, to adapt, to improve, you know, and look, and it takes courage, right?
Confidence is rooted in the courage to face, the uncertainty to try new things. To embrace the challenging front of us and in this day and age with high pressure, this environment that we don't know how [00:11:00] to navigate yet. Yeah, growth mindset is really, really cool cultural element, right? Workplaces that foster psychological safety are much more likely to have this environment where you feel safe to adopt that kind of growth mindset.
But even in that kind of environment, if there's a lot of competition or there's a lot of pressure. There's still a lot of agency for the individual lawyer to carve out spaces where they can practice that growth mindset. Would you agree? Absolutely. But it takes accepting the reality, right? And asking the questions, what can I do here?
Yeah. Because sometimes when the challenges are too big, they become overwhelming, right? So the growth mindset, having the mindset that ask those questions, that gives you agency. So Kathleen, why is growth mindset so important for lawyers in particular? Well, we've already touched on it, right? In terms of the complexity of the legal profession, the pressure that we're [00:12:00] under daily, the fact that if we just view our capacities, it's fixed.
There's no room for growth there. The thing I'd add around it though, is that. It's not just a matter of, oh, you can have a fixed mindset or a gross mindset in res, like holistically. I think the reality is that when you start digging, you're gonna find that all of us and lawyers are absolutely no exception, are gonna have gross mindsets probably in relation to some things, and then have fixed mindsets that they're not even aware of.
Consciously in other areas, and they could be absolutely different areas of legal practice or they might be about different areas of life that impact and that have a bigger impact. So with this kind of discussion, I think there's a number of different ways to think about it. So where have you already got a growth mindset, different parts of your work?
Is there an [00:13:00] area that you have a fixed mindset? Like for example, do you have a story that you tell yourself Area, I'm just not good at negotiation. Or I'm just not good at contract drafting. I'm good at something else. Like I, my, my skill and I've got a growth mindset with my advice writing, but oh, not with public speaking.
I think if you start reflecting on that and think, oh, okay, so is that actually true? Or what would happen if I took more of a growth mindset and practiced in those areas and what might that change? I know that for me, that this work had a big impact. In other areas, aside from the law. You know, this whole world that I've gotten into in terms of all things coaching, the thriving lawyer has meant that now just this stance of curiosity, oh, I can't do it.
I can't do it yet. Let's try and figure it out. And anything from website development to video editing to filming, I don't know how to do any of it before I started it. Sometimes it's [00:14:00] frustrating when I hit some tech barrier and. You might recall, Carl, the time that we first tried to film, and it took us most of a day to set up equipment that should have taken 20 minutes just because we couldn't work it out.
But you know what? We did it right. Yeah. Because we persisted. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what I hear you saying is like having a growth mindset about growth mindset, right? We all have, but like where do we have and where we don't bring in that sense of self-reflection around it as well. Can you think of any, what are some of the common barriers for lawyers to develop to have a growth mindset?
I think just this pressure to get the work done and be immediate like that the, the timeframes that we're often dealing with and the pressures and obviously like that duty to our client, like it is a real thing. We have obligations to our clients. In terms of the standard of service, so absolutely. It's not a case of, oh, any mistake is okay.
You could have [00:15:00] catastrophic consequences at times. I think that kind of thinking can be a barrier too, but I don't think that means that we should be aiming for perfection all the time. It's about taking reasonable risks and experimenting and learning, like it could be something. Really simple in terms of you write an advice and perhaps you've got a partner who's settling the advice.
Uh, particularly when you're a junior lawyer. This can happen a lot, right? I remember in the first few years of practice, you'd get your advice back and it would be full of red pen, and if you didn't have the right kind of growth mindset, that could be really crushing, oh, I'm just not good at this. But really it's about.
Shifting that and going, okay, I'm not quite there yet. What do I have to learn? How can I change that? It's just shifting that thinking. Does that resonate, [00:16:00] Carla, with your experience more broadly? Yeah, absolutely. It is. I guess it's like about catching ourselves as well. Yes, but with self-compassion. That self-compassion work, which we also talk about in the thriving lawyer more generally, is really important.
Here it goes together. Because it's about not beating yourself up incredibly and concluding, oh, I'm just not good at that. That's a really fixed mindset kind of thinking. Yeah. Nobody wants to make mistakes, like we don't make mistakes on purpose. In a lot of the times, this was the best decision or the best approach that I could take within the mindset with the knowledge and the body, the level of time, the energy that I had at the time.
Yeah, we missed maybe some steps, but how do we give ourselves grace to understand, okay, bring the self-compassion. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time. The other point I just wanna make [00:17:00] about the value of that kind of thinking is that it can really result in profound shifts in what becomes possible.
Because if you have a fixed mindset, you believe your capabilities are fixed, you're either good at something or not. So you are good at it at school. Therefore, you're good. If you start to shift that and you start to explore new areas, suddenly a lot of new possibilities can emerge distinctly from that change of thinking, regardless of any changes in the external circumstances.
I've certainly find found that for myself in terms of the different interests that I'm now pursuing, both at work and outside my work have broadened out. Without question,
is there one small mindset shift that lawyers can practice to that? Yeah. Every time they catch themselves thinking, I [00:18:00] can't do it, or I'm no good at it, you could just reframe that and put yet at the end of the sentence. It's very simple and it just changes the thinking. Yeah, absolutely. He gives, I've been doing that with my weightlifting outside of the hall, right?
And you know what? I'm lifting much, much heavier weights now. It's been four or five months of this regularly, and it is absolutely slow progress, but boy am I measuring it and seeing that there are improvements, which I like. If you'd have asked me four months ago, I would've said it's impossible. Very good.
That's exactly why we created one this one hour course. The Growth Mindset for lawyers, it's short, it's practical, and it's packed with tools that you can apply immediately, whether you're early in your career or you're stepping into a new leadership role. So we designed it for real life, no fluff. Again, no theory, just [00:19:00] powerful questions, actionable strategies, and really help you reflect and understand yourself as well and your old patterns.
And how might you. Start developing the growth mindset. Is there something that you would like to add, Kathleen? Oh yeah, look, just that, I think that this is really practical. It's whether you are feeling like you're stuck with imposter syndrome or you're just feeling a bit stuck in a rant, or you're perhaps you're ready to step up into leadership and really go that next step in your career.
This course is really practical. It's designed to help you shift the way that you think, shift the way that you work. You are absolutely gonna leave it with very clear strategies to apply with some really powerful reflections that you can action and simple actions that you can grow. And that's both as a lawyer, but it's also as a human.
And of course, the bonus with all of the way that we've designed it is that depending on your [00:20:00] jurisdiction, you may be able to claim it as a CPD point. So we'd encourage you to check the requirements of your jurisdiction. But we'll definitely put the links in the show notes to the course. And if you'd like to talk to us too, please get in touch.
She can talk to us via LinkedIn or Instagram, and we'll also put the links to that in the show notes Mindset. It's something that isn't fixed so you can shift, it can have a real impact on how far you go, the possibilities that are open to you, but also how you feel along the way. Ultimately, whether you thrive or not.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you.
Kathleen: 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 [00:21:00] heard, please drop a review in apple podcasts.
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If you'd like to work with us, check out our free resources and our signature course, the thriving lawyer. Which you will find at www.thrivinglawyer.com.au. You can also download our free guide, the lawyer's guide to thriving: a sustainable roadmap for success.
It's filled with great tips and ideas so that you can begin to make real change. You'll find the link to that in our show notes.
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