The Resilient Lawyer with Jeena Cho

In this episode, I am excited to have Karen Gifford on to discuss co-writing our book, The Anxious Lawyer, her wellness routine, and life after law. Karen Gifford is COO of Ripple Labs, global leader on distributed financial technology. Previously, she worked in the financial industry, first as an attorney in the private sector and at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she was Counsel and Officer in the Litigation and Enforcement Group. Alongside her legal and consulting career, Karen began meditating in a yoga tradition more than fifteen years ago, initially as a means of coping with the stress of her legal practice. Her executive coaching work incorporates meditation and mindfulness practices, placing a strong focus on the importance of inner skills such as detachment and resilience for effective leadership. She also teaches meditation, with an emphasis on bringing the insights of meditation into everyday life. Karen is active in the start-up world as a founder, investor and advisor. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an A.B. from Vassar College.

Topics Covered

• Karen tells us on her writing process with The Anxious Lawyer, her thoughts on the end result, and how living at a meditation ashram helped her find her inner quiet, which helped formulate the thoughts for the book.
• How the internalization of the job that can lead to feeling burnt out and stuck in your career, and the importance of a wellness practice to create space and distance to stay motivated and vigilant.
• The impact that distance and awareness can have on self-reflection, both personally and professionally.
• Life after law: Finding joy in your work, always remaining sensitive to where you stand instinctually, and always looking for the obvious answer when it comes to making a transition in your career.

Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! [email protected]. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho

For more information, visit: jeenacho.com

Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers

I'm creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq

MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus

31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/

Karen Gifford: [00:00:03] Joy doesn't have to express itself with puppies and rainbows and flowers, it can also express itself in a great argument or a beautifully presented witness.

Intro: [00:00:18] Welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life. And now your host, Jeena Cho.

Jeena Cho: [00:00:44] This is The Resilient Lawyer podcast, meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and agents of change. The Resilient Lawyer is inspired by those in the legal profession living with authenticity and courage. This podcast is about ordinary people making an extraordinary difference. This is episode number 37, I am your host Jeena Cho. Hi everyone. It's been forever since I recorded my last podcast, but I've been very busy with the launch of "The Anxious Lawyer" book and I have in studio with me Karen Gifford, my co-author.

Karen Gifford: [00:01:18] Hi Jeena, it's so great to be talking about our book together.

Jeena Cho: [00:01:24] I know, it's been such a long journey, it feels like.

Karen Gifford: [00:01:27] It sure has, it sure has. And it's just an amazing feeling to be not coming to the end of it. I don't think this is the end. But getting to the end of the work, of reading the book, creating the audio recording, going out into the world and talking about the book, that sort of thing.

Jeena Cho: [00:01:49] Yeah. So how does it feel to you?

Karen Gifford: [00:01:52] Well you know, when I first started practicing law one of the partners I worked for said about going to court, he said there's the argument you were going to make, there's the argument you actually made, and then there's the argument you would have made.

Jeena Cho: [00:02:07] Yeah.

Karen Gifford: [00:02:07] And I was thinking about that with the book, and...

In this episode, I interviewed Andie Kramer. Partner with McDermott Will and Emery and author of "Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work," Andie talks about how to combat biases and stereotypes that can hold women back in the workplace.

Topics covered:

• The issues and challenges of women in the workplace
• The importance of impression management and self monitoring
• Suggestions for handling interruptions in the workplace
• The concept of idea theft and how to circumvent it

Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! [email protected]. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho

For more information, visit: jeenacho.com

Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers

I’m creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq

MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus

5-week program. Spend just 6 minutes everyday to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/gLlo7b

Sponsor:

Spotlight Branding provides internet marketing services exclusively for solo & small law firms.

Unlike most internet marketing firms, they do NOT focus on SEO. Instead, they specialize in branding their clients as trusted, credible experts, increasing referrals, and ultimately driving growth.

For our listeners, Spotlight Branding is offering a complimentary website review. Go to: SpotlightBranding.com/trl

Check out this episode!

Intro: Welcome to the Resilient Lawyer Podcast, brought to you by Start Here HQ -- a consulting company that works with lawyers to create a purpose driven and sustainable legal career. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life.

Now your host, Jeena Cho.

Jeena: On today’s show I have Andie Kramer. She is a partner with McDermott, Will & Emery. Andie, welcome to the show.

Andie: Thank you very much. I’m very glad to be here.

Jeena: Andie, could we start by having you introduce yourself?

Andie: Well, I am happy to introduce myself.

I am the author of the new book, Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work which I wrote with my husband. We have been focusing on and worried about how women can succeed at work for quite some time now. This is basically been the culmination of many years of research, and speaking, and trying to see if we can change the dynamic of women at work.

Jeena: How did you and your husband become interested in this topic?

Andie: Well, I’ve been interested in it for most of my career with more than 30 years in the trenches as a lawyer. Certainly seen the thought originally that if you put your head down and you just do a good job then, miraculously, everything is going to be fairly reflected. What I learned was that’s just not the case.

One of the key things that holds women back in the workplaces, the stereotypes and biases that people have about women and men and leaders. These stereotypes and the biases that flow from them hold women back because women are either too kind, too sweet, too nice, too soft -- which we would refer to as being too communal -- or to assert as aggressive, ambitious which is too agentic which is the word that the social scientist use to describe characteristics that are predominantly attributed to man.

And so what we have is a goldilocks dilemma where women are too sweet, too nice, too kind, or perceived as too tough, too hard. Women have this narrow tight rope that men don’t have in advancing in their careers.

Jeena: In your book you talk about the importance of impression management. Can you talk about that?

Andie: One of the things that is almost second nature to men that women tend to have more of a problem with is what is referred to as Impression Management and whether you want to call it emotional intelligence or political savvy, there’s all sorts of different pieces of this elephant of impression management.

But one of the things is that if ...

In this episode, I am excited to have Matthew Foli and Elissa Meyer on to talk about their experience as lawyers pioneering the yoga and wellness environment in Minneapolis.

Elissa Meyer is a Program Attorney at Minnesota Continuing Legal Education in the Twin Cities, and a yoga teacher at a small community studio in Northeast Minneapolis called YOGA Garden. She loves the idea that both law and yoga are "practices," with endless opportunities for learning and growing.

Matthew Foli is a real estate attorney/yoga teacher in Minneapolis. He regularly sends out emails about yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, geared towards attorneys and beneficial for everyone.

Topics Covered

• Matthew & Elissa speak on their pasts that led them to where they are now. Elissa talks about being a lawyer, her upbringing in yoga, and how everything came together for her to become a teacher of yoga and wellness. Matt touches on how his view of yoga as a practice has shifted from his initial misguided outlook of "practicing to perfection", as opposed to practicing for self-betterment.
• Their efforts on bringing yoga and wellness to the local legal community and how it has/is being received. They also reflect on how humbling the experience of starting up a practice and teaching yoga can be.
• We discuss and dispel the myths of practicing yoga, as well as all of our different definitions for yoga and how it benefits us. Matthew goes into detail on how just meditation as a practice can create a pivotal change in how we approach the day-to-day. For more information on Matthew or Elissa, find them at the following sites: Matthew: www.matthewfoli.com

Elissa: www.yogagardenmpls.com

Sources mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene

Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! [email protected]. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho

For more information, visit: jeenacho.com

Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers

I’m creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq

MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus

31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/

Matthew Foli: [00:00:07] If you say you aren't flexible enough for yoga, that's like saying you're too dirty to take a bath.

Intro: [00:00:18] Welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life. And now your host, Jeena Cho.

Jeena Cho: [00:00:42] Hello my friends, thanks for being with us today and joining us for another episode of The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this episode, I am so delighted to have some Elissa Meyer who is a program attorney at the Minnesota Continuing Legal Education in Twin Cities and also a yoga teacher at a small community studio in NE Minneapolis called The Joyful Garden. And we also have Matthew Foli, who is a real estate attorney and also a yoga teacher in Minneapolis. He regularly sends out e-mails about yoga, meditation, and mindfulness.

[00:01:50] Before we get into the interview, if you haven't listened to the last bonus episode, go back and check it out. It was a few episodes ago, I shared a six-minute guided meditation practice, to help you let go of stress and anxiety. And it's particularly great for this time of year because I know for me it's always a stressful time. And so often I hear from lawyers that they know they should meditate and practice mindfulness, but they just don't have the time. And I always tell them you know what, just start with six minutes. Start with just .1 hour. All the hours you dedicate to your clients, work, and others, don't you deserve to have just one .1 hour for yourself? And so I created a program, it's called Mindful Pause and it's designed for lawyers like you so that you can fit it into your very hectic schedule. So head on over to JeenaCho.com to learn more. That's "J-E-E-N-A-C-H-O" dot com. Or you could also look at the show notes. Alys...

Mike Ethridge, attorney from Charleston, SC, champion of wellness for lawyers talks about his journey from burnout to wholeness.

Topics covered:

• What to do when you freeze
• How to recover from a difficult moment
• What is body wisdom?
• Ways to access the body wisdom

Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! [email protected]. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho

For more information, visit: jeenacho.com

Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers

I’m creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq

MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus

5-week program. Spend just 6 minutes everyday to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/gLlo7b

Sponsor:

Spotlight Branding provides internet marketing services exclusively for solo & small law firms.

Unlike most internet marketing firms, they do NOT focus on SEO. Instead, they specialize in branding their clients as trusted, credible experts, increasing referrals, and ultimately driving growth.

For our listeners, Spotlight Branding is offering a complimentary website review. Go to: SpotlightBranding.com/trl

Check out this episode!

Closing

Thanks for joining us on the Resilient Lawyer Podcast. If you’d like to build a more profitable and purpose driven law practice, learn more about us at startherehq.com.

If you’ve enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It’s really the best way to grow the show. To leave us a review on iTunes, search for the Resilient Lawyer and give us your honest feedback. It goes a long way to help with our visibility when you do that so we really appreciate it.

As always, we’d love to hear from you and you can drop us an email anytime at [email protected]. Thanks and look forward to seeing you next week.

Music Credit: freemusicarchive.org and www.bensound.com/

In this episode, I am excited to have on Rielly Karsh to talk about reframing the conversation around politics and motherhood, and why having more moms in positions of leadership matters.

Mom motivator and kid wrangler, Rielly is a former attorney, photographer, and passionate community leader. Lately, she answers to mom and councilwoman. An elected official in Clinton, NJ, where she lives with her husband and two kids, Rielly is dedicated to increasing the political engagement of moms at every level of the political landscape, helping them "run like a mother."

Topics Covered

• Her journey running for office and why having more moms in positions of leadership matter.
• Why we need more moms to run for office AND serve in leadership roles on campaigns, and how to deal with the nagging feelings of self-doubt.
• How the process of running for office starts, and what tools Moms Running offers to women to get more moms to run for office.
• How we help moms and society see beyond the label "just a mom," and see value in who they are and what they do.

Find the 1-hour webinar on relaxing the thinking mind at jeenacho.com/podcastwebinar

Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! [email protected]. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho

For more information, visit: jeenacho.com

Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers

I’m creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq

Free Webinar

Learn to relax the mind, worry less, and decrease stress. https://jeenacho.com/podcastwebinar/

MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus

31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/

Thanks for joining us on The Resilient Lawyer podcast. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It’s really the best way to grow the show. To leave us a review on iTunes, search for The Resilient Lawyer and give us your honest feedback. It goes a long way to help with our visibility when you do that so we really appreciate it.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next week.