The Work on Corporate America and Women (read: Me)

I haven’t been a big fan of Byron Katie’s The Work.  I have watched her facilitate for others and have seen it work for them.  However, when I’ve tried it myself it has fallen flat.  I recently heard my friend Roma Zanders facilitate The Work with my friend Jeannette Maw and I felt myself walking through it with Jeannette and not only experiencing big shifts about my beliefs around “being independent,” but also ah-has about the usefulness and application of The Work.

If you’re not familiar, you can visit Byron Katie’s website here and Roma’s website here to learn more about it.  My friend, Susan Cohen is also great at facilitating it for others, if you’re looking for facilitators.  Basically, The Work walks you through challenging limiting core beliefs you carry on any topic you choose and helps you turn them around and see where you are buying into something that is not serving you.  It also can help you begin to play with what it might be like to view things in a more positive light.

With a little help from Roma, I facilitated for myself on some beliefs I’ve been carrying around about the corporate world and myself in juxtaposition with it.  The one I most wanted to bring to the blog for the benefit of my clients has to do with a belief I have been carrying around and banging my drum about.  Here’s the belief:

·         Corporate America treats women unfairly and poorly.

Now, I’m going to share with you the process I went through to facilitate my own turn-around on this belief.  I will share with you the questions that The Work asks and my unedited, written answers.

1.       Is this true?

No.

2.       Can you know it to be true?

No.

3.       Who are you being while you hold on to this belief? 

Defensive, on guard, defeated, repressed, the kind of woman I think will best navigate the boys club unharmed, a quitter, deterred, untapped, quiet, polite, a good girl, a bitch, skeptical, untrusting, ready to attack, a victim, blaming, angry, judgmental, afraid, a little girl afraid to show that she’s grown up, bullied, complaining, living a sell fulfilling prophecy.

4.       Who would you be without this thought/belief?

On fire, on the playground with the other kids, present, confident, adding value, dedicated, steadfast, proactive, empowered, inspired, a woman making a valuable contribution, myself, able to be the love that I am, on a mission, unwavering, fun, in the zone, expanding, credible, the kind of woman I want to be, heard, a positive example and inspiration, an innovator.

5.       Now turn the statement around.  (How can it be turned around to help you see the limit to the belief and the other ways in which you could think about it?)

Corporate America treats women well and treats them fairly.

Women treat Corporate America unfairly and poorly.

Women treat Corporate America fairly and well.

I treat Corporate America poorly and unfairly.

I treat Corporate America well and fairly.

As you can see, it can be a powerful exercise in defining where your core beliefs about a topic can be holding you back or limiting your world view and your engagement with the world.  Where I found the power was in defining who I am being in holding fast to that belief.  Ouch, but an eye-opening and necessary exploration.  In defining who I would be without that belief I see permission to be truer to myself than ever and open to engaging 100% of the working world, because I really do enjoy men as much as I enjoy women, and the converse must also be true.

Who Am I?

Interview inspired by Iyabo Asani:

My friend Iyabo answered this interview on her blog and so am I!

Answer these questions for yourself and see what comes up for you.

If there was one word that would define everything you do, strive for and resonate with, what would that be?

Love. I have come to the realization that everything good in our lives flows out of love, and I flow love to myself and to every other person, situation and thing that I come into contact with, even when I’m in court dealing with indigents who are accused of crimes. I find that flowing love in my coaching practice and in my legal practice, as well as in my interactions everywhere throughout my day creates a more loving experience for me. Even when I see an awful story on the news, I flow love to the subjects. Being love has changed the way I interact with the world and how the world interacts with me.

What is (are) the core feeling(s) that drive(s) everything you do?

Duty, responsibility, love, curiosity, passion.

What are the things you are most proud of from what you’ve accomplished or done so far in life?

I am most proud of stepping out of the place of blame and victimization into my own power to create life the way I want it to be, and to be in a set of professions that helps others to do the same for themselves.

What is your genius, what are your talents?

I am an incredibly sensitive and intuitive person whom others trust with their secrets and feelings. I am creative and innovative. I am a leader. I am up-beat. I am inquisitive, always learning and growing as a human being. I have an ability to help others see things in a way they never did before.

If you were to start your career/business all over again, what would you do differently?

I would have niched my business to a particular target market very early on.

What do you crave?

Knowledge, enlightenment, love, connection, my own structure, nature, chocolate.

What do you want less of in your life?

Student loans.

What annoys you the most?

Someone, including myself, being unheard. Injustice.

If there was one thing you could revolutionize, what would that be?

Women in the workplace/marketplace, how they are seen, valued, rewarded, promoted, and the standards they must live by.

What are the best realizations you had that changed your life?

I am a spiritual being having a physical encounter. Everything I need is already there for me. What I focus on gets bigger.

What do you love?

Children and the way they look at the world with curiosity and wonder about the littlest things and they fear very little. Creativity, art, food prepared with love, nature and the sounds of birds, the way the sun feels on my skin, crickets and frogs making noise at night, the way the leaves turn over just before it rains, snuggling, my sweetie’s eyes, reading a really good book that I can’t put down, how much my parents love each other.

What is the best material gift one can give you and why?

Live plants, flowers, herbs or trees. They will grow and stay with me for a very long time and remind me of the one who gave them to me or the event that I received them for. I can transplant them when I move, most of the time. I can even cook with some of the plants I receive. Flowers attract bumble bees and butterflies that give me a sense of wonder all summer long.

What is your favorite flower and what do you see in it?

Daisies, particularly Gerbera Daisies, any color. They are like little pieces of sunshine. I call them smiles in flower form.

What advice would you give to your 18 year old Self?

Follow your heart and do what you love doing for a living. Listen to yourself because nobody else has the answers for you but you. Tap in to what you love, what you get lost in, and do that every day. Learn the art of self-love and practice it regularly. Listen to your body. Flow love to yourself and to others.

What are you most proud of in your country/people?

Enterprise. In America anyone can be or do anything they put their mind to. I think that may be true in other parts of the world too, but it certainly is true here. I’m also proud of heritage and history. My sense of both make me truly grateful to be here and to have the opportunities I have.

Did you have a job that you hated in the past and if yes, why?

Yes. I am not sure I hated the actual jobs I had, but I know that at the time I hated some of the people I had to deal with, some of the cases I had to deal with, some of the ways I had to do things, and the way I was treated in some scenarios. I am fairly certain that I hated my “job” because I was not in control of my own life, destiny and career – or so I perceived. I felt trapped, doomed, sentenced. I felt terribly shaded from the opportunity to grow and I was unheard. What I had to offer was not tapped. I did not have the systems in place to do my best. I did not have opportunities to grow. I did not have mentors and healthy learning opportunities.

How to Be True to Yourself In the Face of Rejection

 Did you ever find yourself in a situation where it felt like another or a group was asking you to be something different than who you are?  Have you ever been rejected by a person or group and immediately taken it personally and began asking what you could have done differently or how you might change yourself to fit their requirements? 

I sure know I’ve done this in romantic relationships in my life.  You know the routine: 

“What can I do to make it work?”

“I can change.  What do you want me to do so that I’ll be what you want?”

“I know I can do that/be that, just give me another chance, I’ll show you.”

I never realized that I had done it before in my professional life, and I became aware if it for the first time when I gave myself permission to stop that line of thinking and seeking, and instead be true to myself and hold firm in the essence of who I am as a professional and business woman.

In the exploration of an opportunity that seemed perfect for me at the outset, I had a group tell me I was not exactly the right fit for the project they had in mind.  The way they phrased it went to the core of what I am putting out to the world, my professional presence, my brand, who I am being in public, what I am sharing with the world.

In the immediate aftermath of the conversation I felt the urge to know why; what was it about me that they didn’t like?  I began to ask them questions so that I could “grow and learn” from the experience.  I know I’ve become a much better navigator of my life when I realized immediately that those thoughts did not feel good.  I had a sick feeling in the pit of my gut.  I felt like I was going to throw up.  I’ve done enough spiritual development to be keenly aware of my personal GPS.  My gut feelings are a gift.  They tell me when I’m on the right path and when I am getting lost. 

The growth and learning came in that feeling moment where I reached out to some very supportive friends who echoed back to me that I am very good at being the essence of who I am.  I am doing something very right by being exactly who I am every day and letting that shine through as my personal brand in business. 

The wisdom came in the realization that everyone on the planet has the ability and the right to recognize what they want and what they don’t want.  When an employer or a client or a social group or even a lover decides that they have seen in you something that they are not wanting, that is not an invitation for you to alter yourself to the vision of what they are wanting.

Instead, in those moments of what feels like rejection, we are given an opportunity to recognize in those outside ourselves what we are not wanting and to clarify what it is we want. 

In simpler terms, when a client decides you are not their perfect professional, use that to deepen your awareness and clarity about what your perfect client looks like.  When an employer rejects you or fires you or gives the job to someone else, use that to clarify what your perfect employer looks like.  When a lover rejects you, give yourself permission to get even clearer about how you envision your perfect lover. 

I am not saying that healthy human beings can’t take away lessons and make themselves better people through interaction with others in the world.  Sometimes there are lessons that help us to grow and become a better version of ourselves.  However, when you know you’ve been true to yourself and your intentions have been pure, don’t think too hard about how you have to change yourself to be accepted by others.  Instead, give yourself permission to filter who you allow into your narrow focus.

Don’t be tempted to beg for “close enough” to what you are wanting when you have the opportunity to narrow that focus and get clearer about what is a perfect fit for you.

Making Your Own Sunshine

I have a lot to say to my clients and potential clients about how I know they want better reasons to get out of bed every morning and how I can help them with exactly that.  I know that many of us can easily feel like there's nothing exciting to wake up for in the morning.  It's just another day at work.  Another day to drive in traffic, another day to do the stack of work that someone else puts on your desk.  Even if you brought the work in to the firm, another day to bill, bill, bill so you can make partner or get a bigger piece of the pie.  

What I have helped my clients to discover and what I have discovered myself by walking my talk, is that when you develop your own talents and passion and wrap it up in your personal brand, you can't help but be attractive to those who you want to serve.  When that happens, you begin to pull in perfect work, meaning, work that is lined up with who you are and what you want to be doing.  The neat thing about that is that when you have a desk or inbox full of work that you created from passion and alignment with who you are, you find that you can't wait to wake up in the morning.  You find yourself leaping out of bed excited to start the day.  

Not only that, you also find it easier to look your best and feel your best so that when you connect with others you are putting your best foot forward, so to speak, and drawing in more of the work you love.  

Sometimes this transformation doesn't rid you of billable hours or working all day long.  Instead, the transformation is in how you feel about billing and working.  It's as if you could do what you're doing all day long and not be paid for it, and still love doing it.  I know, that sounds crazy, doesn't it?  I'm not saying you won't be paid for it, I'm just saying you enjoy doing it so much because it lines up with you so well that you get lost in doing it and you take satisfaction from the work itself and the interaction with the types of clients it draws in.  It may take you to places you never imagined. 

In my own personal life, I went from being an associate at a mid-sized firm to being unemployed, to being an entrepreneur.  I knew when I was at the firm that I wanted to be a business owner.  I was meant to work for myself.  I could always feel that at my core.  However, the space I was given during my unemployment presented me with a series of perfect opportunities to learn, grow and discover what it is that makes all the tools I have in my toolbox and the uniqueness of me a unique selling proposition that can serve a perfect target market in a perfect way.  What unfolded is nowhere near what I could have ever thought up by sitting down and trying hard to come up with business ideas.  Instead, I let myself emerge.  I let the self that had been stuffed into a box by "life" come out to play.  What has sprung forth is beyond my dreams, and I've only just begun.

It is no different for you.  Not only do you have a completely fingerprinted set of tools and skills in your toolbox that don't quite match anyone else's, you also have a unique perspective and way of doing things and being you that puts a brand stamp on everything you do, or could if you allowed it to.  In my work with clients, this is what I aim to call forth.  I want my clients to see that who they are is far more valuable than they can imagine and than they ever get credit for or give themselves credit for.  

Most of us are just going to work every day and doing the job we were hired to do according to the company's or boss's rules and expectations.  If we could explore and experiment with ourselves a little and take some time to remember who we are, what we would have to offer an employer or a business of our own would astonish us.  When you find that sweet spot, I promise you that you will want to get up in the morning or you may work into the late hours, but it won't feel like work at all.  Instead, it will feel like play, and you will be the sun shining in the center of it all. 

Even Hole Punchers Need Alignment

This is what my hole puncher looks like, only mine is fancier.  It has little lights on either side that look red when the paper is not inserted properly.  However, when you insert paper that is perfectly aligned in the hole punch, you get the green light.  I was so excited to realize this today after not noticing it at all since I bought it four months ago.  What a goof!  So easily amused or entertained by a hole punch!  Gotta love Swingline, even if I do feel like Milton in Office Space.

One of my friends, Laura, commented, "See, even the hold puncher has to be aligned properly to work."  She said it because everything has been aligned for me lately and things have been falling into my life as if by magic as a result.  I'm loving it and I can certainly share how it's happened, but I will tell you that one of the most important principles involved has to do with what the Swingline hole punch demonstrates with just a simple device.  Crooked, kinked or half in, red light.  Perfectly lined up, green light!

It's a metaphor for the type of alignment we require in our lives to get the green light from the Universe to go forward with all of our desires.  If you step into a place of knowing that what you want is possible, envisioning it happening, and acting like it has already happened or it is already yours, being open to all the right people, places and circumstances, and being thankful for all the great things you already have the Universe is going to give you the green light.

Keeping a positive attitude while living the life you have can be tough when you want it to look different than it does right now.  Ignoring reality isn't always an option.  You still have to go about your normal business until you begin to see the changes you want.  Choosing to do it with a light and easy attitude helps line you up to all that you deserve.

The hole punch is a perfect illustration of this principle, in part because it won't punch unless it's lined up, and in part because I got a giggle out of realizing that.  I can't be the only one, because lots of folks commented on my Facebook page about it too.  It's a cute reminder of how neat even the littlest things can be in life, and how much we can enjoy our days even when we have to go to a job we don't like while we wait for the one we are creating that hasn't arrived yet.

What are you doing to line it up?

The Work-Life Balance Myth

I attended the Young Lawyer's Division Leadership Conference in Milwaukee last Friday.  It was a great event with fantastic intentions.  It even included a talk done by Gary Bakke on Having a Life in the legal profession.  The conference was a little heavy on the negative statistics across the board, and I began to wonder as I sat there whether our focusing on those negative statistics as a collective group is just wearing a hole in the rug.  I wondered whether we'd be better served to focus on the way we'd like to see the legal profession operate and lawyers function as individuals.  

Mr. Bakke did a great job talking about ideas for creating work-life balance, including getting your work done so you can leave at 5 or 5:30 every day.  He said, "You people stay at work long hours even when you're not being productive as if someone is keeping track of how much time you are there."  At the end of the conference someone told me that "someone in the back said, 'Because they do!' during that comment."  It was me.  I shouldn't rat her out, and I'm not mentioning any names, but she said that her firm is the same, there are people who walk around at 6 to see if anyone is still working, and noting who is not.

What I've learned as a coach and as a lawyer is that there is no such thing as work-life balance.  You can't balance the two out.  They aren't comparable, first off.  Second, I believe that work is part of life and life is part of work.  Heck, if it isn't that way, it looks better in my fantasy world that way!  :)

      "Work-life balance is defined as:  Meaningful, daily achievement and enjoyment in each of the four life quadrants:  work, family, friends and self."  - worklifebalance.com

Interesting, because I find that defining it is subjective.  It's an individual path, and it's more akin to integration or optimization than balance.  It's really about integrity and alignment.  I think what is generically meant by balance is an old-fashioned, antiquated idea that you have 24 hours in a day, 8 are spent sleeping, 8 are spent working, and 8 are spent with family or your personal life interests and matters.  Interesting, because:

Between 1977 and 1997, American workers increased their average workload from 43.6 hours to 47.1 hours.  - Willing Slaves, How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives

That doesn't include commutes, which have increased for Americans during the same period of time.  Lawyers work more hours than this, on average, I would venture to guess.  Most lawyers I know work at least 10 hour days plus a commute, and they at least "take work home" on weekends or go to the office for a few hours, if not all day or both days.

If I'm using the same calculator and the same week of hours you're using, there are exactly 168 hours in a week. I took a little time to do some calculations for sleep, commutes, eating, sex (and how you get laid), child care and all the basic human needs.  I came up with an average of 66 hours left, with a possibility of maybe only 57 left, depending on your commute and how many kids you have. 

Let's just say you're left with 66 or so hours.  If you work 10 hour days all week and go in half of Saturday, you just worked 55 hours.  You still won't be pleasing your boss and you only have 11 hours left in the week for anything outside of your basic food, sleep, sex and children needs.  We haven't included showering, getting haircuts, going to the doctor, banking, cleaning your house, walking your dog, or any of the other basic tasks and chores you have to perform every day, and we certainly haven't even brushed up against hobbies, unless being a pick-up artist is your idea of a hobby.  ;)

If your boss expects you to entertain clients and attend marketing and networking opportunities after work at least once a week, there go your hobbies.  That could easily blow at least two and maybe a whole handful of hours.  

I'm tiring myself out, and I haven't even begun to broach what is actually expected of you during the 55-70 hours you work every week.  I haven't mentioned the adversarial environment, the lack of control you have over assignments, clients and court dates, the lack of civility you often deal with amongst lawyers, the pressure to bill hours, the pressure to make rain, the pressure to fit in to the right group at work, the work load, the complexity of the work you're doing, the negative feedback, the high stakes if you make a mistake, and a whole host of other issues that we don't have time for here, but that take a toll on lawyers.

My point is that the idea of balancing this out seems insurmountable, and even if you could do an 8/8/8 split of your time, you'd still be under a great deal of pressure and you'd have to decide how to compose your life in a way that makes you happy.  That's not to say that the legal profession can't be satisfying and happy.

The bottom line is nobody else's definition of balance will suit you.  Nobody has your priorities or values.  Nobody has your unique set of feelings and needs.  Nobody has the unique life circumstances you have.  Cookie cutter work-life balance solutions just don't exist, and quite frankly, free soda and a goldfish at work don't cut it for most of us.  Firms would serve their attorneys well to pay more than lip service and empower their teams to balance their lives.

Lawyers need real world work/life integration that can only be had after they discover what really drives them, what their passion is, and how they can leverage the uniqueness of who they are to best serve the world.  The underlying issue is more often that you don't like what you're doing and you're under too much pressure.  That's why Sundays are always so anxious.  You know you have more pressure in the morning, and more pop quizzes and more uncontrollable circumstances.  Putting yourself at cause over most of the things in your life, including your work, will help you to create balance, but the balance will happen within.  Even as a young lawyer, if you had permission to treat your work as a entrepreneurial endeavor with you in mind, rather than the firm's cookie cutter idea of what you should be, you would serve yourself and the firm better.

True balance is about being in alignment with who you truly are.  Aligning your work with who you are is key to feeling that balance.  Sometimes it takes working with a coach to explore a few things and find your true balance.  When you do, you won't turn back, and you might discover that there is a perfect "alternative career" lined up just for you.

Back from Hiatus

As you may have noticed, I haven't been writing regularly on this blog for several months.  So much has been going on at The Wedding Lawyer that I have focused all of my energy there.  I will be writing here as well, going forward, on coaching topics pertinent to lawyers. 

Please join me here for updates and lively discussion, as you are welcome to comment and participate.

Thank you!