Join us on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast as we dive into a transformative conversation with Joan Claire Gilbert, an executive and attorney coach. Discover the power of personal development, leadership, and emotional intelligence in the legal profession. Learn how managing partners can enhance their team's performance and find personal fulfillment. Gilbert shares her journey from law practice to coaching, offering insights that can reshape your approach to law and life. Don't miss this episode that could change the way you think about your career.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA.
Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
We've always been proud of the tools we give lawyers to create the law firms of their dreams. We know exactly what modules you should, software you should utilize, and the strategies you need to employ to build a law-firm that is a cash-generating machine. When someone initially becomes a GLM member, you can bet that they're joining for the tactics and tools that we offer.
Join us on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast as we dive into a transformative conversation with Joan Claire Gilbert, an executive and attorney coach. Discover the power of personal development, leadership, and emotional intelligence in the legal profession. Learn how managing partners can enhance their team's performance and find personal fulfillment. Gilbert shares her journey from law practice to coaching, offering insights that can reshape your approach to law and life. Don't miss this episode that could change the way you think about your career.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA.
Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
We've always been proud of the tools we give lawyers to create the law firms of their dreams. We know exactly what modules you should, software you should utilize, and the strategies you need to employ to build a law-firm that is a cash-generating machine. When someone initially becomes a GLM member, you can bet that they're joining for the tactics and tools that we offer.
There's a lot to unpack here. But you say it was the family owned seedling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seedling.
Speaker 2:My parents have a yeah, a tree nursery business. They're getting out of the business now. They're, you know they're in retirement age, but I grew up in this family business so I grew up hearing over the dinner table, in the backseat of the car, all the, all the you know the family business issues with employees and all that kind of stuff. So I kind of live and breathe. I feel like the life of a small business owner in many ways, cause that's my upbringing and now in working with you know law firm managing partners or other small business owners, I feel like it's a wonderful convergence of my upbringing and then with the law background as well, helping attorneys.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the renegade lawyer podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and great legal marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, this is Ben Glass. This is the renegade lawyer podcast, where I get to interview people each episode who are making a ding in the world, sometimes inside of legal, sometimes outside of legal. Today I'm recording this on January 2nd 2024. So it's a great, great day to be talking to Joan Claire Gilbert. Joan is an executive coach and attorney coach out in Arizona, where next year's summit will be, so hopefully we'll see Joan at the summit on our stage or helping us in some way. And Joan also, if you notice, is I start to write some articles for us for the great little marketing journal. So, joan Claire, hey, thanks for carving out some time for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wonderful to be with you, Ben. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You know, before we went live I said you and I sound like at least I feel like we're sort of kindred souls, are trying to fix the legal profession from the inside out because, as you and I both know, like so much of one's happiness, I think, in the profession starts with the way you think about yourself, think about life, and then how do you build a business that that supports, supports whatever is happiness for you really? So tell us a little bit about your journey, because I love, because you're also an entrepreneur, you know, by definition, on top of all this, you're running your own coaching business. But let's talk a little bit about that. Like, where did you come from?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I grew up in Oregon and went back east for undergrad at Princeton and then to Notre Dame Law for law school and then headed back to Portland to begin my law practice at a boutique litigation insurance defense firm. I was there about two years and I had my first child and wasn't there, wasn't an option to do part time and so I decided to stay home with her. She was borderline premature and really wanted to spend that time with her but pretty quickly, you know, got a little board being the full time stay at home mom without the intellectual challenge, and began doing in-house work for my folks business Actually they're a seedling nursery but back in Oregon they have about 50 employees or more and did a lot of employment law related work for them while I raised my daughter and then had my second child 20 months later and then I actually got some severe autoimmune health challenges that developed in my back late pregnancy with him and then into the years ahead as a young mother with two young children.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of where my course eventually led to personal development was because I was always seeing the problem out there and feeling all the stress and anxiety. You know, practicing law part time, being a young mother, homeschooling also, and it wasn't until I really got into personal development that I found a lot of relief from the stress and the just the internal, you know anxiety and frustration that I was feeling in my life, with my family life and some other things, and that's how I became a coach, really about three years ago.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to unpack here. But you say it was the family owned seedling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seedling.
Speaker 2:My parents have a yeah, a tree nursery business. They're getting out of the business now. They're, you know they're in retirement age, but I grew up in this family business so I grew up hearing over the dinner table, in the backseat of the car, all the family, all the you know the family business issues with employees and all that kind of stuff. So I kind of live and breathe. I feel like the life of a small business owner in many ways, because that's my upbringing and now in working with you know, law firm managing partners or other small business owners, I feel like it's a wonderful convergence of my upbringing and then with the law background as well, helping attorneys.
Speaker 1:Everybody has their unique set of gifts, talents and interests which you are born with or develop it, and I think that you know our worlds here on earth are really to take whatever that combo is for each one of us and to get exploded onto the world. And the cool thing is that nobody else in the entire world has your same unique combo of these ingredients and you know so often. So I've just celebrated passing through 40 years in the profession.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:So often, you know, you see lawyers who are not fully happy, if not fully depressed. But they're not fully happy, I think, in part because they've never given themselves permission to look at their combo and to then ask like how could I really use this out into the world? So let's talk about that for a moment, because I imagine that you see that in the coaching business, because people probably don't come to you if they're fully happy, energized about either the firm they own or the firm that they're a part of, like there's something there that caused them to reach out to you. So let's talk about some of the things I think you see and then let's get, and then we'll give some advice to people who may find themselves feeling like, oh, she's talking about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds good, yeah, so I would say that one of the big things is, as a managing partner, a lot of us as attorneys we're not trained in leadership skills and emotional intelligence training, and a lot of what I've received as a blessing really is being a coach of a lot of that emotional intelligence, mental fitness training, self-awareness of your thinking, and so the managing partner may be experiencing some troubles with a few talented associates that he has, or maybe some law firm administrators that are in conflict, or even attorneys in conflict among his management team or her management team, and I, as a coach, can come in and provide that neutral perspective to help them understand what is getting in the way and their thought patterns into their performance and their productivity and their ability to relate well to other team members the whole collaboration piece.
Speaker 2:I can take that piece off his or her plate, and many in some sense, and allow him or her to focus more on the management of the firm. You know, in business development and so forth in the marketing right, because a lot of that people management part is not something that I would say a lot of business owners or managing partners enjoy, whereas for me that's what I love to do.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't have to do it, they think, because these people are smart. They're intelligent. They knew what they were getting into.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yet, at the same time, we see you know professional athletes paid millions and millions of dollars who have performance coaches. They do a thing. Well, how do they need like anything else? They're getting paid a ton to do their thing to play a game.
Speaker 1:So I have my you in my life. Sandy Chong of Toronto, who I work with now for probably at least a decade, probably would go back. And when Sammy and I first got together and was in again like your clients, this was foreign feelings and foreign, you know, talent set for me.
Speaker 1:And my first reaction when I heard a lot was like Sammy, like this is really wobble stuff, like I don't like really. And so I'm curious now, as you deal with some managing partner, probably who's been referred to you, john Clare or someone like go talk to John Clare and you start talking to them. Is there resistance? Is there? Oh, this is awesome. And where have you been on my life? Like what do you find their responses to be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I feel like it's. There's a full spectrum there. I feel like the managing partners who have already have a sense of the importance of what you might call emotional intelligence or mental fitness I'm thinking of one in particular who already was very interested in organizational psychology before he became a managing partner, so he already had some baseline understanding of the importance of it. I think that's very helpful for them to see the importance of this work on self understanding. You know, self awareness of our thinking, ability to empathize with yourself, is really key to your ability to put yourself on other people's shoes, and so I would say that there are the people that come to me, I feel already tend to have some baseline confidence that this is what their employees, what their team members, can use to improve their performance right If there's no.
Speaker 2:if there's just a disbelief, like I don't think that's going to work. You know, I don't think they're not going to be interested in having conversations, they're probably not making their call. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You said something in our used to phrase. Empathy with yourself and I think that this is so important for those of you who are listening to this is, I would say, you know, giving yourself grace, like, like understanding that while, yes, most lawyers you know you've worked very hard, you're smart, you've had to, you've had to pass a whole bunch of tests along the way to get to where you are, and oftentimes the person that we forget about, I think, is ourselves. Yeah, finding that. And so you went through this journey, as I understand it, with this autoimmune spinal arthritis, and did that then take you into finding, in part, personal development specialists who could help you with you know, sort of the non medical side? Is that how you found this space?
Speaker 2:Well. So it's really interesting. My husband's actually a formerly practicing attorney as well. We met at Notre Dame Law. He was getting into personal development because he was interested in entrepreneurship and starting at side hustle and so forth, and everything he was reading was talking about gratitude and he was just like what's up this with gratitude? Why is this, you know? And so I started seeing him absorb that. And then I got interested because I saw a shift in his being and his demeanor with our middle child who's having behavioral challenges and so forth, and so I became interested.
Speaker 2:And then, once I got into it, I saw a lot of benefit in my own sense of wellbeing, right. And so I had seen all the medical specialists rheumatologists and was managing my autoimmune disease by my diet. And you know my faith, my faith background. But I had never played with my thinking in a deep way. You know that's nothing anyone really trained me to do in my elite education at Princeton and Notre Dame, right. So it was a total new world for me. I was like, wow, this is amazing. I get to actually like, choose my thoughts. That's like a novel concept, right, you might hear some trite thing, like you choose to be happy whatever you read a book and it's kind of okay, that's great. But on a deeper level, actually practicing that, that's when I really noticed some shifts. And then I started to share my autoimmune journey with a Facebook group for women with autoimmune challenges and then I really wanted to have the one-on-one conversations with them.
Speaker 2:So I decided to offer free coaching and that's when my husband suggested, like you probably should look into coaching, see what it's about, before you put yourself out as a coach. And I Googled actually it and found an amazing program. I had a lot of Steve Chandler. If any of you are into personal development, you probably know Steve Chandler. He's got a number of books out there and this program had a lot of his material in it.
Speaker 2:So I joined that training program and then the four month immersion program to get certified as a coach and through that program I had a lot of peer coaching and a lot wasn't covered in that four months. I'll just say that a lot of, even some trauma from childhood that I had not had the opportunity to really face on a deep level, even though I had done some EMDR after a bus accident in Argentina. It was through coaching that allowed that safe space for those kind of those patterns from childhood to really emerge. And that's what really allowed the freedom to really go deep and see what was there and then come up and develop some new patterns of relating to myself, really that empathy and the way I think as well.
Speaker 1:It is such a complex journey. So two things One, for those who are listening, that you can go back and listen to my interview with Cord Bass Knight. Cord is also a warrior doing this work for military veterans now, the invention of career and learning, emdr and how to EMDR and I mean, I know a little bit about it. But the other thing and you may not know, we have nine children, four adopted from China and all four. When you live in an orphanage your whole life, either to age 18 months or to age 12 years, like there's trauma there. It's just by definition there's trauma. And so our whole world was changed, as Sandy and I learned. We learned everything we thought we knew about parenting and started to go to trauma conferences and brain development conferences and really seek out experts, and it really changed.
Speaker 1:You said something that I don't want people to miss in relationships with people, whether it work, family, whatever the thing that is hardest to change, and yet the thing that has to change first is yourself, right? Where's all the change? The spouse, or change the part like I can fix you and yet you'll be fine. It's so hard to change ourselves. I think yeah. So my question to you would be like? What are some of the Leverage points or keys? You mentioned a couple for yourself but for many lawyer clients when they can maybe even start to work on even as you're listening to this interview or shortly after, even before reaching out to you, like where they can start to call time out. Do some introspection, yeah.
Speaker 2:What are the places?
Speaker 1:that's not even start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I'm hearing, what you're asking is like some practical tools to just get on their way, right?
Speaker 2:So I would say a key thing is just to practice what I call mini mindfulness reps. It's not like you need to have a dark room and sit on a cushion and meditate and learn how to do that on a deep level, but if you can just Slow down the thinking and allow yourself to just drop thinking for even just a minute or two throughout the day, maybe four or five times per day, especially in the morning when you start the day, train your brain to be aware of your thinking. That's really the key is fundamentally self-awareness, right? So if you start to notice those thoughts that you're beating yourself up, many of us it's just white noise because we're so used to it. You know, maybe we heard it from our parents or from some other Parental type figures in our life and we started assuming that own voice of that inner critic within ourselves, right?
Speaker 2:So if you can just drop the thinking and in some level develop a self command of your mind, and that and really bite to do that is to focus on one sense. So, as I'm standing here talking with you, then I can focus on the weight of my feet on the ground as I'm talking to you, so I'm actually, you know, doing two things. But if I were to totally do this without just totally focus on the mini mindfulness rep, I would drop all thinking, probably close my eyes if, unless I'm taking a walk, and just notice the weight of my feet on the ground and really get grounded in my body. And that is a wonderful practice because you're beginning to start to train your mind, to See your mind more as a tool than have your mind rule you right and be sabotaged in some way by your own thinking. So I would say that's, I would say that's a great way to begin to practice self-awareness. And Once you have more of a practice of that, it's easier to go inward and relate to your, to even connect to your heart.
Speaker 2:I would say we talked about the self-empathy, because you've already have a practice of kind of going inward and having kind of a meta Observer stands with your mind your thinking and that'll really give you some great foundational skills that will allow the coaching to be much more Effective, or the other work that you do, and having insights into how to improve your relationships and your work, and all that.
Speaker 1:I think this is, you know, speaking from personal experience. This is hard for most lawyers who are especially if you're in any sort of a litigation world right. It just seems like the to-do list is long. Everything is sort of conflicting or conflicted. And so what I want people to do as you listen back to what the John Clare just said for a few minutes there is to give yourself permission Really to do this, and it is not only okay but it's really necessary, and one of the first things that I worked with Sammy was he used those words.
Speaker 1:He said just, you know, you want to learn to be an observer, like so what? When the world is swirling around you again, whether that's Intra family Conflict or raising kiddos, or it's coming into the office where it's dealing with adversaries, and I would simply tell people that you can learn to do this. You Don't have to be born with it Most of us aren't and you can learn to really mentally take a step outside of the lived experience and kind of watch and it's so. So now, if you're doing this for the first time, it does sound low and we'll put some. Even Sammy first said it, but I will tell you that that is so foundational. Now do you find, do you think there's a difference? Men and women who come to you, mm-hmm, in sort of a accepting and giving themselves permission, but then be sort of executing Some of these initial strategies is a difference.
Speaker 2:You know I don't. I've worked with mostly women so it's a little bit hard for me to have a very balanced perspective on that. But I would say it's equally Possible and practicable, if you would use a lawyerly term. You know, to practice this and even though we have the idea it's hard to take time to slow down or so busy as litigators, whatever, like Literally, the ideal is to be able to do these mindfulness reps as you're doing your work, like as you eat your lunch, right, just drop, put the cell phone away and really notice the textures and flavors in the food You're eating and not look at your email at the same time. Right, like we have this idea that if we slow down we're gonna lose a lot of time and productivity.
Speaker 2:But in across the board with my clients, it's the slowing down really is so effective. With speeding up, right, because we just we calm our nervous system, we get to have a wider view, perspective of what's important and that is so key to avoiding burnout, to Having focus when we're doing our work and not having three or four different things on at once with our phone and our email. Right, it's a lot of slowing down to speed up and that's a hard pill to swallow, I would say, for a lot of attorneys initially, but especially when the managing partner is, you know, funding the coaching. I think the attorneys especially appreciate the opportunity to learn these basic fundamental Well-being productivity Practices. I think you might say it's just like a life skill and it helps them in their personal relationships and everything. So I'd say that it's not always the first thing that attorneys are going to look to for help, right, but Once they learn it they're so grateful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's not the first thing, because no one is ever. They don't even know that this space exists, exactly.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:It's just like what I say about business and marketing like you didn't get that in law school, you don't get it in the profession. It's sort of like even shunned.
Speaker 1:Right and yet one of the ways to happiness in the profession is to run a good business that runs and makes money. Like you, you can actually be happier Serving clients you like serving it and working with a team of people you like working with. And the other thing is, I think in most people if they're reflecting what are lawyers really paid to do? I think we are paid at the end of the day, to come up with a strategy from for our clients, like a strategy that gets the client to you know a win. And yet we get so, especially if you're working. You know I had many friends in the insurance defense side, so this is no cut on them. But when you're, when you're, value to the firm Is based on how many hours you actually work versus thinking. Here's the one big idea that can change the nature of a case that I got while I was in the shower.
Speaker 2:That is.
Speaker 1:Is the changer right? Yeah and so when your compensation scheme is based upon activity as much as is upon you know, experience and Trying to figure stuff out, I think that makes it hard, and you worked in that environment. Yeah first couple years of your, of your profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and in these many mindfulness reps, and slowing down, actually, I found it helps increase the hours, right? So there's the idea like, oh, if I slow down and my hours are going to go down. But I found that it's the opposite is the true, and you get the added benefit of what you're saying, of, like in the shower or on your walk and taking some breathers throughout the day. And that's when the intuition, those insights kick in. They could switch. You know the strategy in your case, right? So I'd say you get the. It's a win in both cases. You get higher billable hours and you get access to increased intuition. So there's really there's nothing to lose, it's only to gain. In my perspective, and the client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's only to gain here, but it's getting. It's getting through the initial you know, perhaps resistance and then have it. So one of the things I did before I had a lot of physical office space was actually, for a point, for a couple years had a separate office in a separate little town that I paid very little money for. It wasn't hooked up to the internet or anything. Well, I could just go and sometimes just being in a different environment I know people like to go to a coffee shop or work at home. It's not the same. It's not the same as choosing a different environment where you can hang out and you are disconnected and now you can just think Really Both about yourself and about your cases and stuff. One of the things that I think we have seen the world of lawyers and executives over the last few years is this explosion of coaches. Right, so many coaches.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And people saying that they're coaches, and it can often be hard, I think, for someone who recognizes they have a need and would benefit from somebody, good to figure out who that person is for them. And you aren't going to be right for everybody and everyone's not going to be right for you. We get that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What advice would you have for someone who may be listening to this and saying, oh, she's talking to me. Of course you can reach out to him, we'll let him know how to do that, but in terms of vetting somebody like you, yeah.
Speaker 4:Hey guys, this is Ben. If you like what you've been hearing on this podcast not just the marketing and practice building strategies, but the philosophy of the art of living your best life parts. You should know that my son, brian, and I have built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives of their own design and creating tremendous value for the world within the structure of a law practice. We invite you to join us at the only membership organization for entrepreneurial lawyers that is run by two full-time practicing attorneys. Check us out at greatlabelmarketingcom.
Speaker 1:What questions should they be asking or experiences should they be having?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I make it easier, I would say, on prospects, because in general I tend to offer at least one or two coaching calls to prospects that are interested in having a conversation free of charge. You can get to play with. What would it look like to have this be an ongoing endeavor, to work professionally? I would say, you know, just if what you're hearing here is interesting and you know you can imagine having some time each week to slow down and be with a person and help them, help, have them help. You see your own thinking and how it's getting in the way and you feel there's a rapport there, then that's a. I think that's a great sign that it could be a good, mutually beneficial relationship.
Speaker 2:You know I produce content pretty often on LinkedIn and Facebook and so I think that can be a good way to get a feel for who I am and my own values as a coach.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think sometimes it's just there's intangibles there that really can't really, if you just if you get a sense that this person is someone that you love to learn from and their being is something that you would aspire yourself to have in within yourself, then I think that's a great sign For me, like in choosing my own coaches. I would say it's a lot of intangibles. I like to work with really smart coaches, so people that are very intellectually bright, and I think a lot of attorneys do appreciate working with me because I have practice law and understand their lifestyle and the content of what they're up to. So for me that I guess I'm just thinking from my own perspective as someone that's very intellectually bright, has a beautiful heart of service and just kind of create that slow down space for me to have my own insights, while they're providing some valuable, you know, possibilities for me to think differently.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing I have found of high value is to have that person in your life who's not really like your friend, right? Who's not your spouse, who's not your partner, who's not your business partner, with whom you can share really high, highs. Hey, this is cool stuff that we did this month and we killed it and with which you can share. Here's the thing that I'm struggling with.
Speaker 1:I can't even like, hardly express or you're afraid to express with those who you know you're most in love with, I guess. And so having that person who can be objective, who has this experience, particularly what you have, John Claire, which is working with lawyers like so you understand the space I think that's been really highly valuable for me.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this so one of the so greatly the marketing a lot of what we do is we help lawyers elevate from the lawyer doing everything and believing that they're the only ones who could do everything to elevating them to sort of CEO status, to running a real business that has and letting go of the vine and having other people run and deal with clients and all that stuff, and so what? So then the level off after that is kind of like how do I develop the next generation of leaders?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the issue is you'll have lawyers who are great lawyers like you. Bring them in. They're great like they're better than you are right litigators, writers, whatever researchers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And oftentimes we want to go. I mean, that's like you could move up the totem pole and you could be a leader in the firm.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But we, you know we and others in our great market have found that to be a challenge for any number of reasons. Usually fear, I think, really letting go of what advice or words of wisdom or words of confidence would you have for someone, or even recommendations you have for someone who's like I've got someone in the firm really should and could be like next generation leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Takeover yeah, and good coaches yeah. Oftentimes.
Speaker 2:So what would I advise in that case?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I feel very confident that I can work with most any attorney that's willing to be open to coaching right. You got to have someone that's willing to be coached right and is open to growth to help them practice fundamental leadership commitments. I would say I'm very much, very passionate about this book, called the Collaborative Way actually, which I have here, and it has five core commitments that will build a collaborative team. If practiced across an organization listening generously, speaking straight, being for each other, acknowledging and appreciating and honoring commitments and when you have a team of people that are it's a shared commitment to practice this and continually and hold each other accountable you're going to have so much more growth in the firm in terms of innovation, in terms of productivity and profitability and engagement. So those are some core commitments that I work on with my clients and I really encourage all firms to adopt these as a shared commitment, from the top down, from the managing partner and his or her management team, and have it be practiced throughout the culture of the law firm. So I have an eight week program to help organizations with that.
Speaker 2:I also am doing some consulting work with the Collaborative Way. If you want to have them, come in as consultants and I've just seen in my own work with law firm administrators, with attorneys, how important these practices are, because there's oftentimes expectations that are not being met because there's not a clear agreement with the set deadline or associates or partners don't feel comfortable speaking straight with each other. They don't want to. You know, rile, it's funny because we're in a very conflict perfect where there's conflict, but we don't, we're not comfortable with dealing with conflict within our own law firm right, and so we tip to around people or we don't speak straight and that leads to a lot of lost opportunities and increased cost over time when those aren't addressed.
Speaker 1:You know, initially, as they this hey little getters not wanting to hurt somebody's feelings.
Speaker 2:Right, right, it's, or maybe it's. They don't feel they're afraid of how it'll react, or you know the roughest one's feathers, and so it's an interesting dynamic there. Right, that we, the profession itself, is very conflict oriented, but then within our own organization, it can. These are leadership skills that really need to be practiced, and without any kind of training in that through undergrad or law school or into your law career, how do we expect people to to know, even to practice these? Right, it's just like anything else you need to learn it and practice it, and so I see my role, as I can come in, is that you might say expert and I'm not an expert in that I'm not learning these things anymore, but that I'm steeped in it and I'm very passionate about it, and I can help that person one-on-one. That emerging leader or the team of leaders begin to adopt these practices as a way of being in their organization, and it's going to give them a whole level of competitive edge that most law firms don't have.
Speaker 1:So oh, for sure, For sure, and even like, like, if you even look at, like the lawyer, wellness programs, the very, the ones I've seen and have sort of studied a little bit, the very top level surface, yeah, based on the individual, not so much based on the, you know, the corporate whole. I'll tell you the way we try to do that. Here is, first of all, brian and I, when we got together to my son and I to to run the firm is we said like, what are we really doing here? So our whole reason for being is we built a firm, we built a business where people will thrive, like has nothing to do with getting justice, those are all byproducts. Getting the most money, you think, deserves all that stuff.
Speaker 1:But if the owners aren't thriving and the team isn't thriving, then the clients. It's hard to serve the clients. If the owners are thriving and the team is thriving, clients will be well served. Here's our mantra and we really try to live this. Which is, if you're working with us as a, as an employee or a partner or something, we're asking you, john Clare, how could we make this perfect for you? And what we say is look, john Clare, I can't guarantee that we could deliver perfect. But if you don't know what perfect is for you and you can't communicate that to us, then it's very hard to shoot for perfect, and we have found that so. So the hard part is getting people to believe that they can actually honestly answer that question and that we'll listen and that we'll try.
Speaker 1:That's, that's the hard the first time you hear it. But we really try to impress that and ask that over and over again, team meetings, whatever. And as a leader, you have to be willing to listen, right, and I think you have to be willing to try, and the person who's answering the question has to be willing to have their own ideas, because all the good ideas now come from the leader. And the other thing that we do I think pretty well is especially at our leadership level is we can debate and we can disagree and we can, and I don't want you to hold back, right, but when we walk out of the room, we're aligned, Like even if your idea didn't get brought into and that happens to all of us like we're aligned for the good of the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And it didn't start, you know, didn't start over, and I was taking like lots and lots of coaching at both at the individual level and at the corporate level, because we have individual coaches like you and we have corporate coaches here. But I agree with you, like, if you can get this part, you know everyone's a good lawyer, like everyone's a pretty decent lawyer in the, in your community, but this part is the golden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so beautiful and what you describe. I want to acknowledge you for taking that leadership and leading your firm that way, and what I see in what you're sharing is just really being for each individual, like we're being for our mission as a law firm to serve our clients in a certain way, but we're also being for each other and for each other's best, and to me that's so fundamental is when we can consciously be for each other. The whole questions of like, how are they going to react? Or you know that pleasing way that so many of us are just ingrained in us through from childhood to please others instead of to truly serve right to the best outcome and people's success a lot of those questions and wasted time and energy just washes away because we can just really focus on being for what the organization is up to and being for each other, and it's a beautiful dynamic when you adopt that and what you and I are talking about is, I think, quite deep, and it's a shame that you almost have to.
Speaker 1:You have to go out and discover this for yourself and it's just not taught anywhere inside the profession at all. Yeah, who inspires you? You mentioned the book the Collaborative Way yeah who else do you read? Listen to. If they were speaking, you'd fly to be there. Who do you like?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, so the founder of the collaborative way, lloyd Fickett. He and I have had some conversations. He's been really inspiring to me and this organization that he started with consultants. I'm actually a leader of a group called the Ultimate Coach in the LinkedIn community and it's overall it's kind of called the being movement. But Steve Partison is here, a local coach of the Ultimate Coach, and this book is really about who you're being. So it's written in some way you might say as a biography this of this man, steve Partison.
Speaker 2:It's a thick book it's a thick book, it's like 400 plus pages.
Speaker 1:So I don't you know the title of that book is the Ultimate Coach the Ultimate Coach, right, yeah, it's by.
Speaker 2:Amy Hardison, it's by his wife. He's currently alive in Phoenix and Mesa, actually, and and I'm a leader in that group and I'm really passionate about being, in part, through the collaborative way, into businesses to help businesses not just think of tactical, strategic kind of measures to improve profitability and marketing and so forth, but really to help them focus on who they're being as an organization, as a team. This is what I was speaking to you with the collaborative ways with me, we focus on a shared way of being that's proven to be hugely beneficial to not only engagement but productivity. You know, the sky's the limit in terms of what you want to create that way when you have everyone, and then initially there may be some people that don't want to work that way and those people may, you know, leave and in my mind that's a win right, if people don't want to have that kind of value system well, 100%, and so you know.
Speaker 1:Another sort of mantra is if this place isn't good, if you're not good for me and this place isn't good for you, then you're just in the wrong place and we'll help you. Try to find that place for you, because, again, everyone has unique set of gift, talents and interests and there is a place for you, yeah. So who's your ideal client, is it? I guess it's law firms that engage you, as is it also individual, like so. So most of the great looking marketing tribe is our smaller firms, typically maybe up to five winners, typically one or two owners, typically teams, maybe up to 25 people total yeah is that your space too, or are you up the corporate ladder a bit in terms of size?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm looking to expand into what larger sized organizations as well, even outside the legal field. But I would say, in terms of individual coaching, I do both. I do individual coaching, also do team coaching. I've worked with a couple like law firm administrators that have been in heated conflict, affecting the whole culture of the law firm. You know, that kind of thing I really enjoy. I just really enjoy taking people aside in that coaching space and helping them get clear on their thinking and how that's creating the problems out there. Really that we're going back to what we spoke with initially just the self-awareness of how we're creating it all inside of ourselves and there's you have. So most likely, if you're like most people, you have so little awareness of how much you're creating inside yourself, but once you do, there's so much power there and freedom when you get to experience that and you get to be more playful and creative with everything in your life when you see how much you have that within yourself you have to be, to be good leader, I think you have to be courageous.
Speaker 1:One of the exercises every year we go our leadership team is off on a two-day on off-site retreat with a coach. Ours is coming up in the law firm, I think, in 10 days. One of the questions that we one of the rounds that we typically do is hey, when it goes around, say what I appreciate about you, john Claire, and then we go and do an exercise where everybody gets a chance to say then here's something that I see about you that maybe you don't see about yourself. That would be awesome if you could change a little bit. And that is a high trust exercise. Yeah, and that's the first time we did. It is deep, yeah, but I will tell you it's one of the best things that we've ever done. And then we make individual commitments for you, having to listen to the other leaders on the leadership group. Right, we make commitment, um, but you can't do that with just anybody. I think you, you develop your leadership team, you develop trust, yeah, and so that's I just hear that as an exercise beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it shows a high level of trust in your team to be able to do that exercise. Did you develop that over the years, that culture to allow?
Speaker 1:you to do that. Yeah, okay, so if people want to listen to this and they would like to reach out to you. I saw someone. You do. You have a book yourself? Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:Actually I have a couple. I wrote last year a book called I am Powerful and it's about growing your own business well, being your best, but this is the book that's more toward attorneys. It's called up level from within 10 actions to boost your performance as an attorney while also improving your well-being and relationships. It's currently on amazon. I'm just getting it reformatted. Currently it should be in its final stages and within a week it's just the. The print was a little small, so but yeah, there's 10 actions in here that I found in my work with attorneys to be really some quite simple and some a little more in that, you know, pleasing versus serving, expectations versus agreement kind of thing to help attorneys really improve their performance while improving their well-being and relationships you use that phrase a couple of times, pleasing versus serving yeah it's a good one so pleasing is kind of, I would say, many of us have this default way of pleasing, like wanting people to approve of us and think good of us right, and you know you're doing great, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Whereas service puts us in a different stance, a way of being of truly what is truly going to serve my colleague, my client, the law firm here, and it takes the focus off of ourselves and more on others. Right, but not in a unhealthy way. Right, because when we're focused on service, it's coming from empathy. Right, it's coming from love for ourselves as well, service of ourselves as well. So, but that stance is a really important distinction I would say that is one of my recommended actions is taking a serving stance versus a pleasing stance one of our mantras is what can I do for you?
Speaker 1:first, all our foreign partners, our vendors, even you know the folks we rent space from, the, the folks who serve us, who yeah bring the amazon packages to us right wonderful website yeah, don't clear coaching.
Speaker 2:Don't clear coaching dot com. So just my name, my first name, and coaching dot com and you're big on linkedin, as you said yep, and I'm on facebook as well.
Speaker 2:I post there as well occasionally, but yeah, those are my two main social media channels and I'm open to giving workshops or presentations or talks to law firms and their teams and um very excited about the collaborative way and bringing leadership training into law firms and other organizations so I'm very excited about having you as a contributor to the journal and asking kid I think you said three, three children yeah age range and interest.
Speaker 1:What are we doing?
Speaker 2:14. The 14 year old daughter has her own business doing natural bird toys for parakeets she had. We have two budgie parakeets, so she's got a cool business going there. She's kind of yeah, 12 year olds really into soccer and, as my six year old son as well, two boys. They're all at the same school here in anthem, arizona, which is on the north end of phoenix, so all right, and you're a good soccer parent.
Speaker 1:That does not get the referees right yeah, I don't, we haven't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't do much soccer myself. I'm more of a runner, kind of an outdoors enthusiast like. I love to surf in Hawaii and surf skate out here in the desert.
Speaker 1:So very cool. John Clark Gilbert, it was. It's been great to talk to you today. We look forward to working with you, sonora, and thank you so much, most certainly meeting you in our summit in mesa in october, oh be wonderful.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much thanks for your time okay, you as well.
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