Episode 14: Saying Yes to Opportunities

Transcript

Tara Edwards 0:00

Hello, my name is Tara, and welcome to Sister-in-Law: The Paralegal Journey, a podcast about the careers behind the case files. Whether you work in law, work alongside the legal profession, are thinking about a career in this space, or simply want an honest look at the paralegal journey, you're in the right place. Welcome back to Sister-in-Law: The Paralegal Journey. You would've noticed that I have not uploaded any new podcasts in the past few weeks, and the truth is I have been really tired. So I decided to take a bit of a break just so that I can get my energy game back. I have learned in the past few years that sometimes, when our body just tells us that we are tired and that you need to stop doing what you're doing, that we need to listen and just smell the roses. So again, I'm super sorry about that. In my last episode, I spoke to Melanie Schon, a licensed paralegal and partner at a national law firm. Melanie shared her journey from starting in an entry-level legal role to where she is today. We talked about mentorship, growth, confidence, regulation, leadership, and what it really takes to build a career in this profession. There is one thing that she said, and that was, Just say yes." Say yes to the scary things, take on the opportunities, and if you're not sure, you'll figure it out. Don't be scared to try something. Maybe you'll fail, but maybe you won't. I think that applies to so many people in this profession because sometimes the opportunity in front of you does not look super impressive. Sometimes it looks like an entry-level role, sometimes it looks like ex-extra work. Sometimes it looks like learning something you never planned to learn, and sometimes it looks like just being uncomfortable, but those experiences can become the exact things that shape your future career. As you listen to today's episode, ask yourself, are you overlooking an opportunity simply because it doesn't look like the final destination you imagined for yourself? Melanie left us with a lot to think about. Here are 10 reasons why you should say yes to opportunities even if you are not 100% sure. Number one, you build transferable skills. You know I like to talk about transferable skills and a big misconception that people can have early in their careers is believing that only the perfect role will help you grow. But the reality is that every role teaches you something transferable. Even if the position itself is not where you plan to stay forever, the skills you gain there will follow you into every future opportunity. Sometimes the role you think is temporary becomes the foundation that makes you successful later. Two, experience creates confidence. A lot of people wait until they feel confident before they take a chance, but confidence usually comes after the experience, not before it. Most professionals are nervous when they start something new. Every time you say yes to something uncomfortable, you prove to yourself that you can figure things out. I've said it a few times that I've transitioned from being a labor and employment assistant to being a collections paralegal and, a corporate paralegal that was kinda self-trained, that became Cores level one and two certified. If you asked me in the beginning of my career would I ever leave labor and employment, the answer would've been no. That is my baby but the truth of the matter is my career took me to these other places, and I think I am a well-rounded paralegal because of it. Three, opportunities introduce you to people. Sometimes the most important part of an opportunity is not the task itself, it is the people you meet because of it, a mentor, a colleague, supervisor, or professional connection that can completely change the direction of your career. Relationships matter. The person you meet in an entry-level role today could be the person who recommends you for an opportunity years from now. I've talked about my mentor when I first started in the industry. I talked about, one of my teachers that I actually have to send him something and pick his brain. So, if he's listening to this, Dan, I'm gonna be sending you something shortly. I just connected with somebody who has introduced me into doing the Legal Education Society of Alberta seminars and reaching out to them. So you just never know where, the opportunities come with the people who you are introduced to. Four, you learn what you enjoy. Sometimes we become so focused on a career path we originally imagined that we close ourselves off to other opportunities. Melody talked about eventually finding her place in employment law after gaining experience in other areas first. Trying something unexpected helps you discover strengths and interests you did not even realize you had. Five, entry-level positions teach foundational skills. Foundational experience matters. Entry-level positions teach you how a firm operates, how to manage client expectations, how to prioritize tasks, and how to function in professional environments. Those are the skills that determine long-term success. Melanie spoke about how valuable assistant and intake roles can be because they teach the realities of legal practice beyond theory. These entry-level positions create foundational skills. It helps you to understand what is done from this perspective and once you have that, you build on it. It's almost like, when we were learning math in school and they taught you one thing and then they built on that thing and they kept building and next thing you know, you're in high school doing, calculus. Growth often happens sideways before it happens upward. Sometimes growth looks like taking a role that broadens your experience instead of increasing your title. The opportunity that seems unrelated at the time becomes the reason another door opens later. You may not understand how certain experiences fit into your long-term career until years afterward. Growth happens through collecting experiences, perspective, and skills over time. In, some of the paths that I crossed, I had to do very minor real estate stuff. Mainly it was just, registering things at land titles. As I got exposed to that, I ended up in a position where we actually did more real estate stuff and we always acted for the seller, thank goodness, but it kinda gave me understanding because I was already exposed a bit to land titles. So even though I got things wrong, and I just wanna put out there that sometimes our best growth happens when, we are not perfect. But it was the idea that I was introduced to this, and so things looked familiar. You become adaptable. The legal profession changes constantly. Technology changes, workplace structures changes, areas of law evolve, new laws created, client expectations evolve. The people who succeed long-term are usually the people willing to adapt and continue learning. Saying yes to new experiences helps you become more flexible and comfortable with change. That adaptability becomes one of the most valuable skills you can develop in any profession. I think COVID also shows, a big thing about adaptability. COVID happened, and all of a sudden, law firms that didn't do the whole work from home thing had to figure out how to do that. Laws changed because of COVID. How we did things changed. It's really important that you become adaptable. You stop waiting to feel ready. People delay opportunities because they think they need more experience, more education, or more certainty first. But if you wait until you feel completely ready, you may end up waiting forever. People grow into opportunities. They learn through doing. They ask questions. They make mistakes. They improve over time. The only difference between someone who advances and someone who stays stuck is that one person decided to try before they felt fully prepared. Nine, failure teaches more than comfort ever will. Some of the hardest moments in your career can become the moments that teach you the most. Mistakes force growth. Challenges force problem-solving. Difficult experiences often develop resilience, professionalism, and critical thinking in ways comfort never could. Melanie talked about learning more from things that did not go well than things that came easily. I talked about that just before and I think we're amazing even in our imperfectness. I think it's really important to understand that mistakes are okay as long as we're learning from them. Even the most detrimental mistakes, and hopefully you never do that too often, but even the most detrimental mistakes, there can be such a learning outcome. When mistakes happen, you can look at that process and you can say to yourself, "Okay, that didn't work. Here's what I'll do better." Or, you know, I didn't really understand that law. Is there a course that I can take to understand it? Do I need to go back to the lawyer that I work for and be like, 'Okay, I didn't get this, 'maybe you can explain it to me.'" In a industry where we are taught perfection and the importance of perfection, I think we also need to recognize that, failure brings about growth, and it can bring about change. You never really know what opportunity will change your life. This is probably the biggest reason of all. You truly do not know which opportunity, conversation, job, or experience will shape your career. Melanie started as an assistant at a time when firms did not fully understand the paralegal profession, and years later, she became a partner at a national firm. The career path did not fully exist in front of her when she first started but by continuing to say yes, continuing to learn, and continuing to grow, she created opportunities that eventually opened doors most people never imagined possible. And isn't that the truth? I'm kinda going through that right now having the opportunity to do seminars or sitting on panels or, writing pieces for paralegal magazines. You know I said yes to one person when they asked "Would you be interested?" I said yes before I even realized what was coming out of my mouth, if I'm being honest with you and then I came home to my husband, I was like, "I said yes, and I don't know what the heck I'm doing.", I think it's so important to realize that opportunities can change you in ways that you just never thought of. I think there is something really important in that for all of us. Your career may not be built through one giant moment. It's built through hundreds of smaller moments where you choose to keep showing up, keep learning, and keep saying yes, even when you were unsure where it would lead. So let's reframe the question. Instead of asking yourself, Why am I learning something that may not even relate to my future goals?" Try asking, What can this role teach me before the next door opens?" Careers are built through small decisions repeated constantly over time, through saying yes, through staying curious, through learning things you did not originally plan to learn, through taking opportunities before you felt fully prepared. At the beginning of the episode, I asked you, are you overlooking an opportunity simply because it does not look like the final destination you imagined for yourself? I want you to think about whether there is an opportunity in your life right now that you've been dismissing. What if the opportunity is actually preparing you for something bigger? What if the thing you are learning right now is building a skill that you will rely on years from now? What if the opportunity you almost said no to becomes the experience that changes your career path completely? So I wanna just leave you with this. When I first entered the industry, and I talked about this a few times, I worked for a very senior partner and I talked about him being difficult. Here's what I'll say, if I had listened to my inner child, I would have been like, "No," because ultimately, it was a difficult position. I said yes because for me it meant feeding my daughter or not. It meant showing up to make sure that there was food on the table. And learning through him, I have to give him credit and say that I am the assistant that I am today because of him, because he was difficult. And I've worked for a few difficult lawyers, or people who have perceived them to be difficult, and I have learned the most from those people. Now I work for someone who values education, so I learn a lot from her because she values education. But because of that first yes, it showed me that I have the ability to say yes even in circumstances that look like, "Girl, what are you doing, close up shop, you have completely flown the cuckoo's nest, and you need to reevaluate your priorities and your sanity." So I just wanna leave you with that. Understanding that by you saying yes, you can completely change the trajectory of how you view your career and what you do with your career. So before we finish today's episode, I want you to do one thing this week. Identify one opportunity that you have been hesitating to pursue because you do not feel fully ready, and ask yourself what might you gain if you said yes anyway. Maybe it means applying for that role that feels intimidating, or maybe it means learning a new skill that feels uncomfortable right now. If anybody asked me that, learning corporate would've helped me where I'm at now, the lawyer that I work for does commercial litigation. So the fact that I'm even doing corporate, who would've known that it would've, helped? I think that's really important to think about. Maybe it does mean learning a skill that you feel uncomfortable in right now. Not every opportunity will change your life immediately, but every experience teaches you something. In the next episode, I'll be speaking with Judy Simms, licensed paralegal and president of the Paralegal Society of Canada. We'll be talking about the profession, advocacy, professional growth, and the evolving future of paralegals across Canada. If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, and connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know where you're at in your journey. This is Sister-in-Law, The Paralegal Journey. Welcome to the conversation