Leadership In Law Podcast

S02E91 Redefining Success for Lawyers & Other High-Achieving Women with Wendy Meadows

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 2 • Episode 91

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Ever feel like you're trapped in a legal Groundhog Day? Your practice looks successful on paper, but something's missing, and the wine and Trader Joe's cookies aren't filling the void?

Wendy Meadows, family law attorney turned certified life coach and bestselling author of "Sparkle and Grit," shares her transformative journey from burnout to purpose-driven practice in this candid conversation. Drawing from her own experience of feeling stuck despite "checking all the boxes," Wendy reveals the physiological basis of attorney burnout and why our prehistoric stress responses keep us trapped in cycles of exhaustion.

The episode unpacks practical, immediately applicable strategies for breaking free: how silencing notifications and identifying just three priority tasks before checking email can transform your workday; why exercise isn't just about fitness but completes the stress cycle your body desperately needs to resolve; and how creating clear boundaries between work and home life (especially for attorney parents) preserves your energy for what matters most.

Perhaps most compelling is Wendy's insight into the early warning signs of burnout that most attorneys miss, from spatial awareness issues to increased combativeness—and how reconnecting with pre-law passions can reawaken parts of yourself that have gone dormant under the weight of legal practice.

Whether you're managing a growing firm or considering going solo, this episode offers both the scientific understanding and practical tools to move from merely surviving to genuinely thriving in your legal career. Don't miss Wendy's powerful perspective on how small, intentional changes can lead to profound shifts in both professional satisfaction and personal fulfillment.

Reach Wendy here:

https://wendysmeadows.com
https://www.sparkleandgrit.com
https://www.wendymeadowslaw.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, wendy Meadows, to the show today. Wendy is a seasoned family law attorney, former litigator, certified life coach and mediator. She's also the author of the bestselling book Sparkle and Grit, a framework that helps high-achieving women break free from burnout and live on purpose. Today, wendy helps women who've checked all the boxes but still feel stuck. She blends practical strategies with compassionate mindset work to help them reboot their habits, reignite their purpose and build lives that actually fit. She also works closely with attorneys, especially those ready to go solo or restructure their practices, offering strategic coaching systems, consulting and speaking engagements for law firms looking to prevent burnout. Increase consulting and speaking engagements for law firms looking to prevent burnout, increase retention and foster sustainable success. I'm excited to have you here, wendy. Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Tell us. I'm loving what you're doing and helping women and female law firm owners just grow and not have the burnout which is such a big problem. Tell us a bit about your leadership journey.

Speaker 3:

Sure, my leadership journey so well, it started way back when you know, when I think I was a student body president back in college, like a million years ago. I usually can't help but be the leader, right. I just can't help Like when, say, who wants to run for office or who wants to do this or who wants to do that, like, my hand typically goes up first. But my leadership journey in terms of being an attorney, I think it started really young, joining the bar associations when I was in my first or second year of practice and then again working my way up in the bar associations to like exec positions, and then sort of the same thing when I was at my law firm.

Speaker 3:

Whenever I saw inefficiency I couldn't help but try and fix it because it's just, it's how I am built. So I became partner very young. I became partner at five years at my law firm and again, I think it was because from the beginning, or from like at least two, three years in, once I got my feet wet and understood the practice of law, I'm like, okay, how do I think like a partner? How can I think like a partner and make the firm?

Speaker 2:

better.

Speaker 3:

How can I make the firm profitable? How can I make sure I'm a good attorney doing good work and what does our firm need to be doing? And my mentor, slash boss slash soon to be partner later on saw that in me and you know, allowed me to be and gave me the partnership position at five years in. And then, once I was partner, I'm like okay again, how can I make this run better? How can I make that run better? Became managing partner and then took the ultimate leadership journey when I packed up my bags and said I want to go solo back in 2018.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's interesting and for someone to actually have seen that in you. You know so many partners or bosses are too looking at everything else to see. But you know the ideal A player would do the things that would keep the business, make the business more profitable and help grow the business. That's fantastic.

Speaker 3:

I was lucky. My boss at the time said what you need to know about when she described me to others when she has her mind set on something, you just need to get out of her way. So she kind of nailed me really fast, I would say.

Speaker 2:

And you have. I love that you see processes and see how to make them more efficient. So, instead of something taking so long, so, when you're working with a woman to help, you know, avoid burnout or a law firm, what is your first step? Where do you look at first? Because, say, I'm burnout, I don't know where to start.

Speaker 3:

Right, Honestly. First, I ask a lot about her personal life and what's going on at home and like what her personal habits are. So where I like to begin, like with the building blocks of okay, and are you exercising? Because exercise is the best way I think we can beat the burnout cycle and make sure we're doing that on a daily basis. With the whole running away from the lion thing, Are you familiar with that? And the birth?

Speaker 2:

cycle All right.

Speaker 3:

So just to start there and the reason why I talk about the exercise component is our reptilian brain, right, is still thinking that we need to escape the lion and that we're out and like foraging for berries or whatever, and the lion's going to come and get us.

Speaker 3:

And so typically when we get stressed like so stress back then, was the lion coming to get us? Stress now might be an opposing party sent a nasty email, we have trial coming up, we have a difficult client, what have you? Our body recognizes stress in the same way, like whether the lion chasing us or something stressful at work. And way back when in prehistoric times we would see the lion run, like our whole our blood pressure. But our heart rate would go up, right, and then it would come down. And I'm not a scientist or a medical person so I can't explain all of this in great detail, but basically we would complete the burnout cycle in that way, like release high levels of cortisol and then everything would come back down and all the right stress hormones would do what they need to do. Once we have escaped from the line, we're safe.

Speaker 3:

Unfortunately, in our day to day area. We don't get to do the same thing. We're stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. And until we get like the same stress hormones going and doing that complete cycle, we never get to that point again. We're like we're safe with either breath work, so like what we can do nowadays is use breath, work, working out, et cetera. It brings that full cycle down and we actually complete the burnout cycle rather than living up here. So even though we're not running from the line anymore, like we need to like run away from stress, and certainly I don't want to say run away from stress, but deal with our stress, and that's one of the reasons why exercise is so important. So I typically ask my attorney client that question and I typically ask about their drinking habits, because attorneys, you know, we work hard, play hard, and so I've learned to ask the question early like and how much wine are we drinking?

Speaker 3:

And typically, it is a place we need a tweak and I say, okay, can we back it off to this, can we back it off to that? And those are just little tweaks we can make for them at home, right To then make the law practice better. And with regard to the law practice, I'm asking how they are organizing their calendar. I'm asking about, like the notifications, like the first thing I do, like we got to silence all the notifications. Like things shouldn't be swooping across your computer. You're like the messages.

Speaker 2:

That is so distracting.

Speaker 3:

Like you should not, like your phone should be like silent at all time, like not even vibe or anything, Just like when you're working, you're working.

Speaker 3:

So that's another thing I make sure that they're doing. And then it's also calendaring in specific time to do specific things. So another first step I take with them is say okay, what I want you to do every day when you sit down, before you even look at your email, unless you can look at it very surgically like what are the three things you're going to focus on today? Three things and like have them either loaded up already in your Outlook calendar, loaded up already as a Clio task, loaded up already in Clio, even like activities, so all they have to do is hit, you know, stop, start the next day. So those are the building blocks I use, because if they habitize those and do those day in, day out, they're going to notice the burnout start coming down because they don't have decision fatigue with regard to what they're going to work on that day. And I've helped their physical health in some way so that they're going to make them more primed to work when they sit down the next morning.

Speaker 2:

So are you so these things that you're calendaring? Are you saying that less non-negotiable time or that's things I want to try to get done today? It depends on the client. So because I started to say, you know, I love, I love the idea of non-negotiable time and I know people who do it. You know, every, all, the all day, I mean every day, they have some non-negotiable time. I find it so hard to you know, I'll have a non-negotiable thing, but I don't, I can't really just stick it on my calendar at a certain place.

Speaker 3:

So it depends Like and I always admit to, mike is I'm awful at it too in terms of like block scheduling. I've tried so many times. It doesn't work for me, but some of my clients it does.

Speaker 3:

So, for example, I have a client who does quadros qualified domestic relations orders and like that's a part of her practice. So we have made non-negotiable time on her calendar, like every friday for like two hours, even though it's not a specific line item task but it's. She knows she's working on quadros for two hours like every friday. So it depends on the client, but for most of them it's. They have this never-ending to-do list. We all put off the thing that we don't want to do. All of us right, right, right. We all know that if we just do that one thing you don't want to do first, number one, it's going to take way less time than we thought. You know. So, like, ok, so let's get that on the calendar first. So we usually, when I'm on the phone with them or on a Zoom, I said all right, what are the things you have to do? No-transcript, working with me forever and ever. Right, as a good coach, like eventually, you know, the birds launch from the nest.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

They start habitizing those things and just doing it on their own accord.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great. So we're working on tiny steps to relieve the big stress and that way, once you get these habits in place now, you've moved them into a place of more enjoying their job and becoming more efficient.

Speaker 3:

Very cool and is that part of what you're saying? Escaping the Groundhog Day, like when we're in that rinse and repeat cycle and we are freaking like miserable. So, and I can like very clearly look back to my and like knowing something is often I don't want to say wrong, but knowing something is often you're not living the life you're meant to be living.

Speaker 3:

So the Groundhog Day I describe in the book is this is circa Wendy 2015,. Right, because my kids were like 18 months and three and a half ish and my day, every day looked like I had no plan at the time. Like this is before I got into coaching and personal development. But I would go into work, I was back up, I would end every night with watching the good wife, because I thought it made me a better lawyer and I and drinking lots of wine and eating Trader Joe's cookies like that was my night, every single night. Watching the Good Wife, because I fooled myself into thinking this was like good prep.

Speaker 3:

Waking up the next morning feeling groggy, tired, fuzzy. My clothes didn't fit because, you know, every night I was ending with lots of wine and cookies and then going to work and playing email whack-a-mole all day long, not actually doing anything but like email. Like defense, defense, defense, defense. Drive home and, I guess, get my kids from like daycare school I guess they were both in daycare at the time or they're in preschool Get them from school Again. Defense, defense, defense with little kids, defense probably with my husband, you know. Defense like left and right. I was like on edge and because I was on edge, that's why I did the good life and the cookies and everything else, and like that was my groundhog day and I remember thinking like well life cannot continue like this.

Speaker 3:

Like this is awful, like okay, what's something I can do to change it up, like what's something I can do to like get out of it. And for me it was health and fitness. It was getting back to the gym, it was finding an exercise program and I find every time in my life like I'm ready for a next big change. I find every time in my life like I'm ready for a next big change. I go all into an exercise program and it just it does something in my brain, it lights something up and I'm like, ah, like I feel awake now and now I know like where I need to tweak.

Speaker 3:

So it finding just different ways to like upset the system but in ways that make you feel alive again, and for some people it might not be working out. It might be like going back to a childhood hobby or activity they did a long time ago. And again, it's not necessarily because they're going to fall in love with that activity again, but it wakes up that part of your brain to remember who you were like before we got jaded with all this stuff and like, obviously it's like it opens like the neural pathways and we're like, oh, that's who I am and what I see is just people come back online.

Speaker 2:

I would say yeah, I can imagine. I've been in jobs, businesses where you just kind of get, you get stuck. You know that is classic burnout, it's just the same thing. It feels like the same thing every day. But that email whack-a-mole is like such a great term because you do. You end up wasting all this time addressing an email when you should be, should be doing it later in the day, but you work the time to do it, yeah, and suddenly you're like, okay, it's been two hours and what have I got to show for?

Speaker 3:

so often, or just like we're just pushing stuff back and forth, back and forth. Are we really making any progress? Are we just like going in circles? And I can't stand that. So that's why I really like my people like going back to what we said before. What are the three things you're going to tackle today?

Speaker 2:

Right. I mean like your firm is going really well, but you're just not. It's not there for you. How do you help that?

Speaker 3:

That's where I get when I, when I talk with potential clients or I'm coaching a client again getting back to their why and they kind of sometimes like want to punch me in the face, like I don't want to talk about my why. I'm like, but your why is what's important, because if it's where you are isn't aligned with why you want to practice law or where you went to law school, or what hoping your legal career will do for you. Like we need to get back to that and and figure that part out. And again the life looking good on paper too. Again, it's like everything looks great and fine. I mean, that's where I was too, back in 2015,. Even sometimes, like still like in the last several years, like wait, everything looks fine on paper, but something's missing. Something's missing. I think it's also just teaching my clients to be really present.

Speaker 3:

And when something doesn't feel right, that they take a step back and think about, okay, what it doesn't feel right, where do I feel it, why am I feeling this way, and what might feel a little bit better. And then they have the accountability for me to like, push them, push them, push them like very gently, like baby steps. I'm all about baby steps to get them into a spot they're like oh, and this feels better. And sometimes too, with clients, that's finding something that might be outside the practice of law, not necessarily to do a whole big career change, but find a project or find something different that will again light them up, again, to make everything else feel a little bit better, and then give them information about what their next step might be.

Speaker 2:

Well and having a dedicated amount of time each day where you're not just thinking about work. Yeah, when it comes to the, what it looks like on paper and what it feels like my, my coach actually says follow the data. You know, we can all get into that imposter syndrome or whatever it's like. How can I? And your brain just goes on a journey and sometimes you just have to stop and go. But realistically, this is what is happening or what the data shows, so you can't believe that story.

Speaker 3:

I talk about that in my evidence. When I talk about self-limiting, I talk about that in my book about self-limiting beliefs. And same thing is when we're trying to quash those is look for the evidence that it's not true. Right, look for the evidence and or like if there's a part of it that is true which can be like, what a part that is true. If someone's like not happy with their life on paper, okay, so what do we do to change it? We can either be here and sit and complain about it, or what's the like? It seems like a wacky idea until it's not right, and then again like gently pushing them in the right direction.

Speaker 2:

I love that, and so we have all of these stories in our head. But what would be? What is the early signs of burnout? So, instead of waiting until or just you know, trudging through it, see it coming and be able to divert away from it.

Speaker 3:

The early signs for me when I noticed like I'm not excited about getting out of bed, like I don't like, and I'm a morning person, so I'm a morning person, I generally like to get out of bed.

Speaker 3:

So if I'm not excited to hit the ground running. Okay, something's off. If I'm not looking forward to going into work, something's off For me too, and this might be like more, more. Okay, I'm definitely burnt out when I start bumping into things. Like when I start bumping into things like and my spatial, my spatialness like to us out the window, I'm like, okay, wendy, something's going on. Or if I start dropping things. If I start bumping into things, dropping things, that's when I have to do like a reset and think something's not right here. And I think the last one is when we start like being combative with everybody, like especially for attorneys right Attorneys, like we're generally, unfortunately like negotiating or fighting with opposing counsel, sometimes even co-counsel, sometimes our clients, et cetera, and when we don't have the tools to go home and stop doing that and we're still in defense offense mode rather than just collaborative mode. Those are like okay'm the problem here, like it's not anyone else, it's actually me. And what do I need to do to like come back to a place of like homeostasis.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Okay so, and just really looking and seeing what what you're doing and noticing the, the changes in your personality or whatever has happened, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I think the theme of all this too, that everything we've been talking about, is how important it is to be present and to be self-analytical right and to really really, every morning, like in every evening, think about okay, who am I, what's going on? Where do I feel? Do I feel stress in my chest? Do I feel stress in my body? How am I feeling? Does stress in my chest? Do I feel stress in my body? How am I feeling? Does this feel good? Does this not feel good? And getting really, really back into our bodies and like letting our like the physicalness that we can feel right Be a good indicator of where we need to look, like sort of like the check engine lights, I guess, like the feel in our body where the check engine lights are and to be curious about it, rather than just like drink the wine, go to bed and like pretend like nothing's happening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean because you see your clients in close to their worst day in their life. I mean they're going through stuff, you know, and so that's. That's stressful to start with, but I love the way that you coach and help get a way of get out of that and learn what to look for. And what about? You just mentioned two babies. How do you that's amazing to me to have two little ones like that? How do you help other women kind of deal with their new mothers with high pressure roles and babies?

Speaker 3:

They're 13 and 11 now. They're much came back in the day when they were teeny, tiny and it's. I remember vividly going back to work after my first maternity leave when I just had what a three-month-old. And just walked into work and like tears gushing out of my eyes I felt so guilty. I wasn't no-transcript. And then we get into our heads and we get this really weird like math guilt thing going so keep being scored.

Speaker 3:

We do.

Speaker 3:

And if I could go back and talk to that Wendy or I go back and talk to my clients, I have, like the one thing that we need to do is we have to compartmentalize like we have to like we have to have some sort of like when we are home, we are 100% there and doing our best to put our clients problems like on the back burner for that time period.

Speaker 3:

So, too, like when we're driving home and like getting ready to like step into mom mode is even to like say a little like mantra to yourself okay, I'm leaving work, it'll be ready for me either when the kids go to bed, it'll be ready for me tomorrow morning And'm in mom mood now. I want and like even thinking about what kind of mom you want to be, like I am present, I am fun, I am playful, whatever kind of mom we know we wanna be that evening or that morning to really think about that and visualize it so we can ensure it happens. And same when we go to work. When we go to work, like okay, I'm going to work partly so I can provide for my children and it's okay that I'm at work and it's okay that I have to be like working person right now and I'm not a mom while I'm at there. Well, I'm a mom, but like you, kind of like, do your best to parse it out and take it okay when I'm at work, be the attorney.

Speaker 3:

Be the attorney.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And be like okay, and what kind of attorney do I want to be present and I want to be insightful. So, thinking about the like, as we're driving to work, okay, who do I need to show up today at work and continue to toggle back between those two and just knowing it, like it doesn't matter how many hours you spend with your kid in that way, like and I remember I got really like I had a whole like sketch pad, like talking about spreadsheet. I felt so broken up about it and I was like, just you know, if you are the best mom you can possibly be when you're with them, like your kids aren't counting hours, they're counting like you know they're. They're leaning on their attachment to you and they're leaning on, like, their love for you and the things they get to do with you. That's the advice I would have for that mom, that young mom.

Speaker 2:

And I love the the. You know the transition. When we used to all commute, we had that time, whether you're driving on a train, bus or whatever. But I mean, so many people are working from home now or, you know, at least part time, working remote. How do you separate that? How do you help be present? Because you are being present but you're moving to a new, to a different present present, but you're moving to a new, to a different present.

Speaker 3:

Well, first I just want to say I think it makes it so much harder. Like as much as I love working from home and I think it's great and does so many wonderful things for like the workforce and just helping, like moms too, like helping us get everything done, we need to get done and be present, I do think there's a drawback as well. So, especially like you're saying, like not having that commute time to like decompress, it's a drawback, it's hard.

Speaker 3:

So the things that I would recommend, same sort of at least chant the mantra, like chant the mantra to self, and or can we build in that half an hour reset time somewhere else? So maybe that would be the perfect time to go on a walk, even if it's with the kids going on a walk, ideally by yourself, but I get people just want to get to their kids. I'll be at that point. Or maybe that's when they do their workout at the end of the day, like hop on the Peloton or hop on the treadmill and like do something for a half an hour again, just to give you that break. Otherwise it's just a lot of talking to yourself, like I have my clients talking to themselves a lot about. Okay, like who do we want to be as we shift? So I would say, either like factor in a pretend commute and maybe even like add in your workout or a walk there.

Speaker 2:

I love that and I noticed the one thing that made a big difference for a lot of people that I know is making a distinct, separate place in the house that they work. And so I actually have a friend who, when he's not at work, that door stays closed so he can't just wander in. Because he's not at work, that door stays closed, so he can't just wander in, because he's made a commitment to his wife and his children that he, when I'm not at work, I'm with them, and I thought that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 3:

I will say the amount of time clients have come to me from their bedroom and they think that they're and the clients if you're listening to this. I'm sorry. I love you very much, but when they see that they're working from bed, I call that out as well. I've become more confident in what I call out fast these days, but I'm like how on earth can your brain be in your head right and you are doing good work when you have your laptop in bed? You're not going to be nearly as productive as if you're sitting like a nice flat.

Speaker 2:

I had a Zoom call with a client that was in bed and it was not sick in the middle of the day. This was crazy, Like.

Speaker 3:

I can't imagine and also like that's going to be terrible for your sleep, right? Because your laptop's always there. You're going to associate bed with laptop as well and like bed is bed. I don't even watch TV in bed, like, unless I'm really really sick.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about your book. So Sparkle and Grit. Who is this best for how? What does it help us with? And I think there's another book that goes with that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a workbook companion as well, but the book is best for, I would say, the young working mom. I basically wrote it for a 2015 Wendy who you know, had the three and one year old and she is trying hard to figure out how to balance everything. She is also feeling sort of I call it 50 shades of gray not the fun kind and blah right, she is just like blah, not with it and just needs a wake-up call and needs a push and that's what it is. It's basically a lot of the things I coach about, but in one book as a lot of my story interrobin. So it reads as you can notice, I talk kind of fast, so I think it's a pretty fast read too, because I wrote it in the same way that I speak.

Speaker 3:

So I think most people, when they read the first chapter, the comment I get the most is do you have video cameras in my house? I feel like you have video cameras like that. I'm like beaning the picture. That's like pretty darn accurate. So I think they see it's like real, it's like practical advice. There's nothing so over the top that they're not going to be able to get done. So that's who it's for and that's what it does.

Speaker 3:

It has a QR code in there. They can download a free workbook to I call it grit work and the grit work is homework they can do along with the book, which I highly recommend. So they are actually getting action items out of the book. And then I also did a journal, the sparkle and grit journal, and it kind of talks about what we talked about in the podcast as well, which is like it has the top three tasks I will accomplish today. It has that in there and it's also again being really intentional with how we feel. Like when I woke up I felt when I want to go, when I go to bed, I want to know and again really setting the intention for each day and who we need to be and who we're going to be in, like what I call the big event of each day.

Speaker 3:

So this is I can think of good like mind prep for each day.

Speaker 2:

And I love that you're doing prompts in the journal. I find journaling was very helpful, but sometimes I kind of get lost in what I'm. I mean, it's good to kind of just let it flow but at the same time having those prompts actually bring you back. And I love that your journal has the prompts like that. It helps you get clear on what those things are spiral.

Speaker 3:

Right, If I'm in a spiral and I feel anxiety and I feel awful because it happened to all of us, right, Like, okay, clearly I felt awful and anxious before and I must have done something to pull out of it. What did I do? So I'll go back to the old pages, be like okay, this is when I wasn't feeling so great. Oh, these are the things I did to pull out Cool. Or the vice versa, like hey, I'm feeling great and fabulous. I want to continue feeling great and fabulous, Like how did I keep this up before? And again go backwards and say, OK, this is, this is what I did before to get there. So I think it's neat in terms of and seeing like how we grow in different ways too. Right, it's, the longer I've been in personal development and coaching, the less and less bad days there are, Like OK, so you can see like your growth in that way as well.

Speaker 2:

And I think one of the nice things. I never thought I would be the one to do this, but you know how you keep your old journals and I have periodically went back like five or six years and read it and there was one particular period where I was miserable and didn't realize it until you know. But if you have a check in, I think, with yourself, like every six months or every 90 days, how's it going? Am I seeing improvement?

Speaker 3:

I love that, I love that and I wish I journal. I am so annoyed at myself for not journaling between like 2005 and 2018. Like I wish I had more to look back just to see, to really like know that person again, but she sort of seems foreign to me and I would love to know what's going on in her brain.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it is interesting and obviously your journal is a private thing. But, yeah, being able to put the thoughts on paper, especially when that imposter syndrome comes in, I think that's part of the burnout. You know. You start feeling like you know all of that, so I think that's also very helpful is seeing what did you say, how did you work that out and go through that?

Speaker 3:

A funny story. I actually recently found my composition book from when I was a freshman in high school, which was a journal and like reading everything I was writing about back then, it's like, wow, two things Like one.

Speaker 3:

I haven't really changed. My personality has not changed whatsoever. I am the same Wendy as I was back when I was what like 14 years old. But my growth has changed in terms of like, my strength, my resilience, my I don't give myself nearly as hard of a time as I did way back in ninth grade, but that was really neat to read too. So I I encourage too, if any people in your audience have journals from when they were young, to go back and read really good nuggets in there, and nuggets in terms of like, oh, wow, I was really good at this in ninth grade. Who knew Right? Because I found like poetry, I wrote that my boss is pretty good, you know. So again, like, ok, can I tune back into that person like that creative outlet, because she's there and they're somewhere, like, should I spark her up again?

Speaker 2:

I love that. Yeah, go back and look at who you were back then. It's like we were talking about in another conversation retaking assessments, like leadership assessments, and I did one I'm not saying it's the last one I did was, I think, 30 years ago, and they're completely different, you know, from driver driver to, and I'm like well, I think it's certain age you don't give as much, some things are not as important. So I think, looking back, checking, in with yourself.

Speaker 3:

looking back, things are different. It's like that core personality is there, but like I think we're built, you know, in our experiences and our like what's the word? I'm looking for Experiences and, just like, I guess, insight on them as we get older. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think our insight on them as we get older yeah. I agree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think our emotional intelligence grows as well, and but I love, I love this conversation. If let's just, what would you think or hope that someone takes for, takes away from this, this conversation, that are leading into burnout?

Speaker 3:

I would say just knowing, like those couple of little baby steps they can take right now, like, so exercise isn't just just because you want to be in good cardiovascular health or because you want to, like, look better. It actually helps us so much in work, so much it gets our brain clear, completes the burnout cycle, et cetera. But if they take one thing, either okay, I'm going to start exercising or okay, I'm going to. Every morning I sit on my computer, decide the three things I'm going to work on today. Or hmm, and I'm not like an alcohol counselor or anything like that and, trust me, I still have drinks and all the things as well but I'm just much more intentional and present about it.

Speaker 3:

It's maybe like them kind of thinking, ok, is this helping or hurting, like my process, and then thinking about, ok, if they want to get out of the Groundhog Day and live a more technicolor life, going back to an old journal or going back to something that really made them excited and happy before, like, they don't have to be like the best hip hop, pretend it was hip hop, they don't really need to go be the best hip hop dancer ever, but just knowing that, maybe, if they get back to that a little bit. It's going to wake up something inside of them that's going to then shed light on what their next step might be. It's going to bring them back to that place again that they were before they were jaded from the practice of law.

Speaker 2:

Trying to find a way of having fun. Yeah, I think having fun is it's not just for children, it's, it's in, needs to be done we need to laugh, like we need to laugh like regularly, exactly, exactly. Well, I really appreciate your time today. I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you and chat with you.

Speaker 3:

Where would be the best place for them to do that? A great place to find me is on LinkedIn. Another great place is my website, which is wendysmeadowscom. There's another Wendy Meadows out there. She writes fiction apparently. But Wendy S Meadows is my life coaching website and I think that's where they can really see the services I have and there's a link on there and they can book a free call with me and that's generally like a 30 minute coaching call just to see if we're a good fit and see how they like some coaching.

Speaker 2:

Perfect, and we'll have all of that in the show notes and, of course, a link to your book. Thank you so much. Awesome, wendy. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for joining me today for this episode as day for this episode, as we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners. Marketing zonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep bleeding with vision and keep growing your firm.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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