β
β
[00:00:10] 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.
[00:00:23] 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,
[00:00:45] 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. β
welcome to episode 21 of season two of the Thriving Lawyer with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. I'm Kathleen the lawyer of the pair, and I'm here with Carla. So, greetings, Carla. Great to be with you today. Hello, Kathleen. Nice to be here. Look, let's get right into it today because we wanna begin this episode by.
Talking about something a little bit different today, and that is something that a lot of lawyers will know, but they will, might avoid or they just don't even address it because it's all too hard. And that is in fact this narrative that we can so easily carry around, which is this idea about I am going to look after myself later.
So that might be or look like a whole lot of different things depending on what kind of lawyer you are. If you are someone who spends a lot of time in the courtroom, it might be after the case or the trial's over after a deadline passes. Maybe it's after the inbox is cleared, or perhaps it's even finally when you feel that you've actually earned it.
The problem is, is that time never comes. What do you think, Carla? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:30] Carla: We very often convince ourselves that we are doing fine and that we are coping and we are just tired because, you know, work is really demanding and it's okay to feel like that. But I think what we would like to raise today is just like, well, what if this version of fine is just based on assumptions?
That you have never really stopped to question. You know what, if you're not quite aware of the narrative that is driving some of those behaviors?
[00:03:01] Kathleen: Yeah, I think that that's a really good point, Carla, because I think too often in the legal profession, it's considered normal. That's just the default way of operating, and even in parts of the profession that have a reputation for being better.
Like the public sector, which is where I have seen and been part of for many years. Even, you know, somewhere there, there are lawyers who are constantly tired and stressed and stretched thin, and they just think that's normal. It's part of being a good lawyer. Somehow there's this idea that in order to be valuable or to be doing your job as a lawyer.
That means that you have to be frenetically busy. We're not just talking about engaged and happily like, happily engaged and busy and productive. I mean, frenetic. This idea that to be that tired, stressed, and stretched is what you need in order to be valuable. And so when you start having that kind of mindset, it then becomes.
The reality that looking after yourself is essentially selfish. It's something extra. It's optional. But beyond that, I think that it's selfish that you are almost neglecting your responsibilities if you look after yourself. Okay. Because that thing just becomes, oh, it's a nice thing that we can do if we have the time.
Does that resonate with what you see?
[00:04:39] Carla: Yeah, absolutely. There used to be this cross-organization that's normal, but I think now things are changing a bit, right? And people, they getting to recognize that when they finally slow down, that can feel very uncomfortable. They started seeing more productivity, less anxiety.
They're coping with everything, but there is less suffering and how they're dealing with it. You started by caring for your mind, for your body, for your emotions, and then everything around it starts strengthening, right? Because you're, you're dealing with all the same things, but you're not so attached.
You're not fused with it. It opens up as a, a layer up
[00:05:26] Kathleen: that is a bit different. With all of that in mind, what we're going to do for the remainder of this episode is really. Reflect on our own experiences with this, we're going to consider, well, what are the things that we thought we knew, identify, and reflect on?
Perhaps the patterns we held onto. Maybe we weren't even aware of it. In fact, we weren't aware that we were doing that, and how we began to gradually make changes in how we approach things, changed our mindset. To make this idea of wellbeing, not just something that we would do if we had time or if it was a reward for working hard, but actually a really fundamental priority in the way that we go about our lives now and our work.
And when we do that, what we'd really like to do is bring in some of the science and the research that have helped us make sense of these shifts. Because of course, over the last. Few years we've been going through a big learning process, and by no means finished that it's, this is a, a lifelong lesson I, I suspect.
But we have been really engaged in this work, and I can't speak for you, Carla, I'll let you talk to your own experience, but for me, definitely in the last several years, there's been really big changes and I think it's interesting too. The other thing I'd like us to kind of talk about is. How we've applied that as we have developed the thriving lawyer, we've founded our company, we've now launched our key product.
We've worked many hundreds of hours on putting it together, and it's come along with a lot of learning, hasn't it? And a lot of, I'm learning, right, that we've had to relearn what we thought we knew. All of that comes with a certain humility perhaps, but also a lot of fun. It's been a lot of joy and fun and community too, because an important part has been the relationship that you and I have really grown and developed in ways that we probably couldn't imagine when we first embarked on this.
You know, stepping back, you know, it's not about perfection. It's one of the big things that we talk about in the Thriving Lawyer because you know, as lawyers we wanna be perfect. Often we don't even realize we've got that mindset too. I think we've gotta apply this work without that aim. What we wanna be doing is exploring well, what actually might be possible if you stop, push, push, pushing for like more, work all the time, and actually start really understanding what it is that your body needs and what you need.
As a person to thrive, because that might look different. Like there are some fundamentals that the science says are really important, but there are things that you'll have to adapt for your own life and your own circumstances. Whatever is your reality, whatever is the path that you're on now, whether you are a really experienced lawyer and you're in the absolute thick of your career.
Or perhaps you're a new lawyer starting out, or even a law student about to bark on a legal C career. I think this conversation might be an important one in terms of thinking about what success means for you and how you can really challenge this narrative about, well, for it to be worthy, it has to be hard.
[00:09:09] Carla: And look, and this belief, hard things have to be hard. It's been with me most of my life and I did not realize that was a belief because it was, I was so fused with it. It was, I thought it was the reality, right? And then being able to reflect and understand it. I was three years. I had, when I was a kid my whole school life, right?
So I was so two year younger than everybody else in my class. I grew up in that environment, so. It was really hard to keep up with all the kids and I had to work really hard for everything. You know, both academically, both, like especially in relationships and trying to be older than you are, you know?
It's pretty So like, yeah, struggle was a requirement and if something felt easy, man, that was, that's not it. That's not valuable. Get it right. It has to be hard. Broad. There's been through everything.
[00:10:14] Kathleen: Yes, and I think that there would be a lot of lawyers who really can relate to that experience. The legal professions, it seems to attract for obvious reasons.
People who are academically very strong, they've always been the smarter kids in the class they've got there and often identify themselves and have built their identities around. Being good at school and then good at learning, and that carries through from childhood into adulthood. And with that probably comes with people who are really used to working through pressure and pushing themselves more and more and more to perform that little bit better, to get that prize, to get that job, to get that promotion, to get that salary, to have the appearance of the wealth or whatever it is.
The trouble is, is that over time what can happen is that we can start to think, well, everything has to be hard because that's the way that we're looking at the world. And so if we're in discomfort, that means we're doing things right Now. That's not to say that discomfort is not helpful sometimes. One of the things that I've been really focusing on in my gym work, my tolerance for discomfort has increased, right?
Lifting the hard weights and getting to that point where I'm really, really pushing myself. And then I get to the sixth if it's a really heavy weight or the 10th repetition and I can't do it anymore, it's just too hard. But I'm okay with that discomfort now. Right, because it's short and it's momentary, and I also know that it's gonna pass.
That old Buddhist lesson of everything's just momentary, kind of has really been reinforced with that. But when I reflect on that, what I'm also aware of is what comes through that is rest between the repetitions and then rest between the days. It's not that I'm pushing those weights all the time with that discomfort to the point where then everything collapses.
I'm giving everything the recovery time, right. So that 'cause the muscles develop in the rest time. Now that's a metaphor I think that's apt here. And I'm just wondering what your reaction is to that.
[00:12:36] Carla: Well, I, I, I'm a true believer that change that perspective in the context of the gym and the health it translate into other contexts as well.
It helps you reinforce this in other aspects of your life. And so whatever it is that we are seeing, whatever the, the discomfort or the tension is, that is an opportunity to learn from that. Yeah. And, and with the subject that we are discussing, if it's too hard, I fuse with it and I just become that. Or the other response often is I'll avoid.
And then do nothing, or I'm not going to that meeting or I'm not going to do this. That can be another risk when we are not leaning into cover a different way. Sometimes we are leaning to it, but it will become it, and then it, it's what we are. We are trying to, to imply in here, we, the struggle feels too much and if it feels like, then we started creating the belief that it needs to feel like this because we are so used to be so fused with things.
And, and that for me came much later in life, you know, and letting go of that belief just a little, I started to notice how I was more creative, you know, I was learning from a place of curiosity rather than learning from the place. You've gotta learn this, you know that you need that in order to be a good coach in order to be.
A good student. It's a lot more creative and more productive. Yeah. It's not about working less, it's about enjoying, and then it's about the power of recovery as well. The recovery has been a huge part of this because it allows disconnect from what it's, and usually no recovery involves coming back to the body.
Movement of, or you know, a meditation practice or some different thing else. So all of that, and I think that is a big component on what I have because it allowed me to be able to notice more when I am going, when I am feeling that sort of the struggle. And then I can pivot and find a different approach.
[00:15:01] Kathleen: And I know, Carla, that you did that. After increasingly becoming aware of the science behind all of this, that for you, that awareness, you know, you did some of that flow training with Steve Kotler all about performance and flow and the emphasis on recovery. I know was such a deep part of that, and I remember hearing you talk about that before I really got into some of that work.
One of the key lessons that came out of what you were learning was about how it is so clear that the part of the brain that is responsible for decision making for our complex thinking absolutely needs to recover to function at its best. And that's exactly what you've just been talking about with me.
We just go into this reactivity. We are overcome with mental fatigue. I know that this happens. I catch myself still the other day. I had a lot of stuff going on at work with the uni as well, plus our thriving lawyer and. I was just needing a rest and a break and I hadn't quite been as disciplined as I normally am with my little breaks.
I had to be aware of that and then had to take some steps to take a bigger, like more rest than I normally would've to have that absolute recovery. But if you've ever felt like you foggy, you know, maybe you get to that point, and this is what I was feeling like the other day, a little bit scattered after I'd just been working so hard.
On a couple of things, then this is what's happening. And then what I noticed about my own behavior was that I was losing my ability to see things from that broader strategic point of view, and I'd kind of become very task focused. Like I just wanted to get the thing done, but I actually had to step back because like even like when I'm thinking about my legal work that I do so often I could give a black letter law answer pretty easily, but unless I've got that capacity.
To kind of step back, it's very hard to think about, well, what does the client really need here and how can I frame that response to be strategic, to actually really address what they're doing? When you lose that, you're not being an effective lawyer anyway. The point is that we are really trying to make here, which is why not?
We probably know at some level, but it's just that deep level. We're not really believing is that that best performance. Comes from not pushing endlessly that we've actually got to take that time, make that effort for that recovery and renewal.
[00:17:38] Carla: Yeah, and we, we, we've noticed that right in both in ourselves.
Like you just share example in a lot of lawyers that, that we work with when we're really tired and overwhelmed, like we tend to fall back to the default patterns. What do we usually do with that thinking if we are in the process of actually trying to implement a different way of approaching, like in the example, like you need to go into the very detail, but you also want to be able to take that strategic view, right?
And if you lose the ability to do that in a context that requires that of you. It's difficult when, you know, will we, we lose the ability to be reflected to, to be more creative and then we are moving to that autopilot.
[00:18:27] Kathleen: Absolutely. And so when we're talking about all of this, right, it's not just about like the example I gave you, I neglected some of this myself 'cause I got caught in the moment.
And this is what, you know, we're also up front. We are not pretending that we are perfect here. We, we are trying to practice these things and we've learned a lot. We're just as prone to them as anybody else. But the lesson and the thing that I have been working a lot on is this idea, it's not just recovery that's after the fact.
You know, that's remedial, but it's actually really crucial to have those practices that are preventative that prevent you from getting to that point. In the first place. For me, that is normally a lot around my gym work, my yoga, and then the connection with friends and family to have those really quality good times.
Like for me, going to the theater or eating a good meal does that for me too, right? Or just being able to read a book for. Go for that walk on the beach, something like that. But having enough of that and having short breaks, right? Things like that so that I'm not just having those eight hour stints at the computer without getting up except to eat or something doesn't work for anybody.
And then longer cycles too, like every now and then deeper breaks potentially. Like that connection for me in nature too, is a really important way that I get that. Whether it's a short walk outside or, or a longer holiday and a hike, say once a year, they're all those kind of things that I think are really important.
You know, we really need those cycles of rest. And the research on flow states is really important here because you know, if you think about those moments when we are really, really focused on something, we are completely immersed. We're working at our best to be able to have those moments consistently.
Well, everything we've just talked about is essential. If you don't have those cycles of rest, you're just not gonna be able to get there. Otherwise, you're just gonna be chasing constantly that next item on your to-do list, that productivity without being truly productive, and you're not gonna have the energy or fuel to be able to sustain it anyway.
Do you agree?
[00:20:44] Carla: Yeah. Yeah. And look, one of the most interesting papers that I read on wellbeing. So they said to have this embedded recovery, and then they linked to productivity as a paper that was from the researchers from the London School of Economics in Oxford and Dene. It's probably one of the lead scholars in this area.
So they looked over 1.8 million employees across more than 200 organization, and they found it. It was, it's really big, like we will put the link in, in of the, the title of the paper. I think it's, it's an open paper as well, I believe. So they found that employee wellbeing is directly correlated with higher productivity, greater for profitability, and more customer loyalty and lower staff turnover.
So the data, the data showed that organizations with higher employee wellbeing, so productivity increased by 20%. It's
[00:21:45] Kathleen: massive.
[00:21:46] Carla: And profitability by 16.
[00:21:49] Kathleen: What we love about that article, sorry to interrupt you there, Carla, but is so often we get this stuff and there's so much research around wellbeing, but what we don't see is how it actually improves the bottom line.
Now a lot of corporates will kind of say, oh, we don't have time for this stuff. It's fluffy. We just want the profit. We want productivity. You know, there's a national debate going on in Australia at the moment about how we can increase productivity. That alone without all these, you know, big policies, just focusing on employee wellbeing to see productivity increased by that amount and profitability as well is mind blowing.
Yeah. Yeah. It's
[00:22:30] Carla: a, a beautiful reminder that wellbeing isn't just nice to have, right? Like it's, it's where businesses, if you want to be productive, these studies are helping us see that. And I like to link here like the Barbara Frederickson research on brother and build theory as well. Like I'm wondering if like, if there is more positive emotions, even brief ones that, that expand your capacity to think and innovate and solve problem because it maybe helps them understand that the joy, gratitude connections, it doesn't pull away from work.
It maybe might be feeling. The ability to do that better and that it's like an increase in how you show up, how quicker you do certain things. I know for myself, if I'm tired, exhausted, and I have to write something, it's harder than if I am rested and recovered. I know I become more creative in, in when I come from that place, so
[00:23:26] Kathleen: Absolutely.
And so that's probably a nice spot to move from like that broader discussion around the science. That backing and that was such a powerful study to our own experiences again. So, and in in particular, creating the thriving lawyer. Now, this has been something that has taken much longer than you and I thought it would to get started.
It's never a straight line. We changed the date of the launch more than once. There were lots of unexpected challenges. We constantly had to apply the very things that we were hoping to teach in order to cope because it wasn't like this was our only thing. We've both got other work and commitments to other PE people in our lives and different projects, our study, so we really had to practice what we preached.
Right. What was it like for you, Carla?
[00:24:28] Carla: Yeah. For me, one of the big shifts I think was learning that building something can be fun and joyful. You know, I had characters sort of this idea that, you know, as I said before, I had to always work really hard for everything. Everything has to be a grind. Like, you know, that's how you do things.
That's how you create things, and creating the thriving lawyer. You know, with you Katherine, it was very different, right? Because we, yeah, we were doing the course and applying what we were teaching at the same time. When I saw the idea of playfulness, the curiosity, you know, having breaks, we were very good about having lots of breaks of eating.
Like I remember when I was at your house, you always bring the fruit PLAs that we always have and walks like many walks, you know, to recover. Many conversations. I remember where we were going for a walk. I said, now it's a break. It's surprising how energizing was to collaborate with someone that works so different.
We both work very in different style, like we brought something very creative and yeah, so I learned a lot through working with you in this process because obviously we both influenced each other and our relationship. It was emerging as something, and that was somewhat part of what we were creating as well.
Like everything was emerging right. During that time. Yeah. And now we can see, but back then it's, it was a lot of learning.
[00:26:02] Kathleen: Yeah, and I mean, look, there were lots of flights between Noosa and Melbourne. We were going between, so you know, we stayed at each other's places. We saw behind the scenes of our very different lives and our very different experiences.
I really do think that did have that impact that you were just talking about, not just in the Thriving Lawyer project, but in how we viewed what was possible when you're not doing it alone. I had tried. For a long time to do that work. I had that idea for a long time before I asked you, and I just realized I wasn't getting the traction that was too hard to do on my own.
Bringing you along was exactly what I needed because I didn't have to do it the hard way. The relationship and the community had such an impact on the quality of the work that we produced and that we now are ready to share with the world. I really wanna highlight that too, because I think it's worth lawyers thinking about in what way are you fostering that community as well, or that connection, those relationships that can challenge the view that everything has to be hard.
And it could be as simply as maybe viewing a couple of your work relationships in a different way and being open to possibility. Think too. One of the things that we did really well together. Is challenging each other and reminding each other of the work that we like, all this body of knowledge that we were teaching so that we could slow down and begin to reflect on whether we were still having some of these unconscious beliefs that we'd been living by and noticing their impact.
Things about what it means to be successful. What it means to show up fully. And then for me, specifically in terms of my legal work, what it means to be a good lawyer. And I think what is really interesting is you think you've learn this stuff and you think that you've challenged your ways of thinking, but so often you catch yourself or you don't catch yourself until it's too late and you've already been stuck in that mode.
Some of these ways of thinking are so deeply ingrained that we don't even realize that we've inherited them or that we're utilizing them like they're automatic. They're coming from our unconscious, essentially. And so part of what all of this is about is trying to bring what is in the unconscious into the conscious realm, which is incredibly hard to do.
We're not saying it's easy either, but once you start having these reflections, right, making the decisions, drawing the conclusions, all of this, we can start to. To think about it and reflect on how we're reacting to all of these patterns that we've never really examined before. What do you think?
[00:29:04] Carla: Yeah, I, I, I think the, for us around setting the expectations and what we, we thought we could achieve, you know, I think the moment that we gave ourselves permission to ask is this time why, you know, actually realistic now, the different things.
Emerged now that there are situations like, 'cause a lot of the times we make plans and we are coming from a place of like, ah, this is what it's going to happen in the next six months. Right. But really we can't quite predict what, just everything that is going to, we might have an idea, right. But there are always things emerge and then coming back and say, well, is our plan still okay?
Yeah. So we opened out, but a lot like from a different way of navigating. Our work and, and I think our personal lives as well that can speak, you know, I think we both did, right? So it became less about proving or having to meet the expectations and more about being honest with ourselves and checking in what is actually possible now with this new reality.
We're not gonna be avoiding that. The reality change, like, and being able to say that, even be able to go there and say, look, it's different here. I think we've begun to shift from chasing like what we thought we should do to more towards creating a definition of success that felt aligned with what we were learning and who we were becoming.
This
[00:30:36] Kathleen: reality that we were leaving fits within your context, right?
[00:30:40] Carla: The
[00:30:40] Kathleen: realities of our context. And we had to be really upfront and communicate really strongly because things would change from for both of us often quite quickly because of something outside of our control that was in our reality. And I suppose that comes along with the fact that there was a lot of learning and growth in all of that, both learning.
In terms of all the things that come along with creating something like the thriving lawyer, but also in our own development as people, I think, you know, and that that growth doesn't look like a straight line. You go forward, you go backwards. It's not always neat. It can get really messy. Sometimes the breakthroughs come and you don't even notice, right?
Or it's like really quietly through rest and reflection and not that hard effort all the time. And so. Bringing it back to the law again. I think that the lessons I've learned here are really applicable in my professional work as a lawyer, and that's why I'm so keen to share it with you all is that given our profession so often rewards hard output, and it's always wanting certainty.
The culture of peak performance and of really pushing things hard, which actually is contrary to real true peak performance, like that can really feel counterintuitive. The more we applied these kind of ideas, the more that we saw what real growth opened up, how we could adapt and. I think along with that, the realization, that's the kind of mindset that we actually need in an environment that's really complex.
So for me as a lawyer, I absolutely need that in an environment that is so challenging. You know, the legal world is a demanding one. It shifts, it changes. To really respond to whatever your clients need. You absolutely need to be flexible, but you need to be grounded. You need to have that space for that strategic thinking that we were talking about, but you need to, in order to do that, still be connected to yourself while you're dealing with all of those demands around you.
Absolutely.
[00:33:11] Carla: Yeah, and, and we've learned that really. Oh yeah, absolutely. In our relationship is, and even the capacity to understand, to take another perspective as well, like you understood my reality very well, that is very different than yours and I understood yours. We doubt and there was never speak from us, there's never been judgment around that.
Right. We, we took an effort to, to really be empathetic to. Can I understand someone that has completely different way lives in a different way than me with different contexts as well. So that, that's been really good. And, and it has been possible because we, you know, we let go of the idea of having to do this way.
This is the only way, yeah, we created a way, but sometimes that way had to unlearn and relearn, you know, and that came from the ability to notice. Ability to reflect and then sort of adjust and being okay of getting wrong. Being okay of like, well I didn't see that coming. Could I have seen been in the right?
Yeah, all the time. But that's part of the learning, hence why like in the course we go back, you know, as you're learning, how does this vision change? Like we go back to the best possible stuff so many times throughout. 'cause there's that account. Something else. Now you learned this. How does that fit with where, with your roadmap, where you want to go?
You know, I think maybe this is a good place here for us to wrap up.
[00:34:53] Kathleen: Yeah. What should people be left with? Carla? I
[00:34:56] Carla: like to suggest a very small, gentle chow. It's to experiment with something small this week around this area, whatever there might be for you, you know, maybe it's. 10 minutes of recovery in the middle of your day.
You know, maybe it's a walk, maybe it's listening to music or some breathing exercise. And then notice after that what is the benefit? How, how's your focus? How's your energy? How's your mood? And also maybe notice the beliefs that come up with that. You know, what are you assuming about rest? What do you think you are allowed to feel?
Does experiment whenever? A lot of those things are quite unique for ourselves and if we're not recovering well, there might be a good place
[00:35:50] Kathleen: to get started. What I like about what you said there, Carla, is that the starting small bit is so important, I think for lawyers in particular who've got that tendency towards perfectionism because of the way that we're trained.
It's really dangerous to suddenly try to be perfect in this area. You actually undermine it and you won't get the recovery that you need. So I like that challenge because I think that starting in that one small way is manageable and it doesn't overwhelm. So with that in mind, I think that's probably a great place to sign off.
So if you've listened to here, we're so grateful that you've joined us in this conversation and. Please if something resonated, we'd love you to share it with a colleague. We are really trying to get the word out to lawyers out in the community there. And please reach out, let us know. We're on LinkedIn, Instagram, you can email us as well, [email protected] au, for example.
And then, yeah, we look forward to seeing you next time. So 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.
It really helps spread the word.
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.
We hope this podcast has given you massive value. And that you can use it to begin to create your own thriving life. A life where you can thrive as a lawyer. And in the rest of your life.
