#188: Deep-Dive Into What’s Really Causing The Legal Profession’s Burnout Problem

Heather: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to the Life & Law Podcast. This is your host, Heather Moulder. And today we are talking with guest Lora Cheadle.
Lora is a lawyer, author, TEDx speaker and leadership wellness coach who specializes in burnout and betrayal recovery. One of the things that interested me about bringing her on was this insistence in the legal world that we all are suffering from burnout, which many of us are, I will say.

And a lot of the common symptoms include things like exhaustion, overwhelm, disillusionment, feeling disconnected from others. But what if it isn’t burnout? Or what if it’s not just about burnout? That was the question that Laura brought to me and really intrigued me. So that is what we are going to be getting into today. Welcome, Laura. Thank you.

[00:01:46] Lora: I’m so looking forward to our conversation.

[00:01:48] Heather: Let’s back up a little bit. You are a lawyer.

[00:01:51] Lora: Yes.

[00:01:51] Heather: How long did you practice?

[00:01:53] Lora: You know, I only practiced about 10 years. I was in house with an international insurance company. I did about two years of insurance defense and then guess what? I burned out.

[00:02:06] Heather: Okay, well, 10 years is actually a long time. There’s a lot of former lawyers who practice for like two or three and then gave it up.

[00:02:13] Lora: Right.

[00:02:13] Heather: You definitely practice long enough to know the struggles of the average lawyer and what a lot of us deal with. So I am curious to know, like, is there some turning point for you this, this burnout versus betrayal. Right. What was the turning point that made you go, wait, is this just burnout? Is there something else? Is there something in addition, what is your personal story around that?

Lora’s Burnout & Recovery Story

[00:02:38] Lora: Yeah, absolutely. Well, after 10 years of practicing law, I was a mom. I had two kids 22 months apart. My husband is also a lawyer, and he was traveling about two weeks out of every month. My. I had grandparents that all lived nearby, and three out of four of them all passed within a year and a half period. So my personal life was insane. Just insane. And as you all know from practicing law, billable hours requirements, you always have to be on. You always have to be perfect. It was just too much. And I tried everything. I did all of the traditional remedies to manage my burnout, and nothing was working. So I thought, you know what? I got to walk away. I just. I’ve got to walk away. I’m going to do something different. And I did. And for a while I thought, well, that solved it. I left the career that was causing my burnout. And.

[00:03:34] Heather: And for everybody out there, she says causing. And she’s got him in air quotes.

[00:03:40] Lora: Absolutely.

And then I started doing this legal wellness, started working in the wellness space. Well, I burned out again. And I thought, how can that be? I am teaching meditation and mindfulness. I am taking breaks. I’m walking in nature. I’m doing yoga. I’ve got this work life bal. How is it possible for me to be burned out? And as I was pondering that and grappling with that question, I went through a significant personal betrayal and infidelity in my own life and in my own marriage. And that took me down, as you can imagine. It took me down to places I never thought I could go.

And I started learning a lot about betrayal trauma. And as I got through that, I started connecting the dots, and I started realizing, wait a minute. So much of the stuff that I was dealing with in practice really was more like betrayal trauma than was like burnout. So many of the symptoms that I was experiencing practicing law were more like betrayal.

And that’s when I started putting it all together and doing the research and working with people, and that’s how I started figuring this whole thing out.

[00:05:02] Heather: Okay, so I totally understand what you mean by betrayal trauma when we’re talking about a marriage.

[00:05:09] Lora: Yes.

[00:05:10] Heather: With infidelity. And I could even see that coming up in other personal relationships where you are betrayed or feel betrayed. What does that mean within the context of work?

What Does Lora Mean By Betrayal, Within The Context of Work?

[00:05:21] Lora: Oh, I’m so glad you asked. Okay, let’s start with the definition. We’re lawyers. We like definitions.

The definition of a betrayal is the breaking of an expectation that you have relied on that ruptures your view of yourself or the world.

So when you start thinking about what are the expectations that you had going into your Career.

I expect that I will make partner out of a certain number of years. I expect that, sure, I’ll be busy, but I can balance my professional and my personal life. I expect that as a lawyer, I will be well regarded. I expect that now that I’ve gone through all of this hard stuff with law school and passing the bar, that, yeah, I’m just going to cruise into my practice. I expect that other people will give me the support that I need. I expect that when I communicate clearly and effectively, other people will just see my point of view and they’ll come around to my way of thinking. These are all examples of expectations that we hold in our career.

And guess what? It doesn’t happen that way. We can’t just explain to opposing counsel our client side of the story. And opposing counsel goes, ah, you’re right, here’s $400,000 for your time.

[00:06:39] Heather: Right. Well, and it goes even deeper than that because I found just through my practice, you know, I practiced for over 18 years in two different law firms and really with my clients now, that our expectations about what should happen or what we want to happen within our own careers, just within our law firm and our practices, they don’t always happen that way. And sometimes it’s because of the firm culture, sometimes it’s because of, you know, other issues, other things that come up. Sometimes it’s because of our own clients. So, like, there’s all these reasons, right?

But we expect, okay, we’re very linear thinking, thinking people, generally speaking. And I think that’s part of the problem because we, we see this, okay, step A, step B, step C, step D, without seeing the competing interests, without seeing the nuance, without seeing all the other stuff, which is interesting to me because we actually see those things when it comes to legal strategizing for the future. But we don’t bring that into how we see our careers and our lives unfolding.

[00:07:44] Lora: Yes, yes. And then we tend to internalize that. What have I done wrong? This didn’t work out. What have I done wrong? Am I not smart enough? Did I not communicate well enough? Do people just not like me? And then that’s where these things like imposter syndrome start creeping in. That’s when all of those internal voices, that saboteur that’s inside all of us, starts creeping in. And then we start getting weird, and then we start getting defensive, and then we start putting all these layers of more expectation, and it’s this constant dance of, I expect this, oh, I’m internalizing it. I must be bad wrong. Stupid, horrible, whatever it is. And it’s this constant push, pull, and it starts cycling us down. And you know what? Alcoholism is very prevalent in the practice of law.

[00:08:30] Heather: Yes.

Where Vulnerability Comes Into Play

[00:08:30] Lora: Part of that is to not deal with these uncomfortable feelings, comfortable feelings. If I expected it and it didn’t turn out. Are you wrong or am I wrong? I don’t want to be wrong.

[00:08:41] Heather: Well, that’s because we see everything as right or wrong as opposed to truth. I think there’s a difference. Right. There’s no right or wrong. Sometimes in these scenarios. There it is what it is. And you, you, you talked about. I find this interesting.

The imposter syndrome, the, the voice inside of our heads, the. All these things. And we, we just assume what that means is something is wrong with me. So then we create barriers, we create walls. We create. Which makes it even worse because it forces us into a downward internal spiral as opposed to getting out, speaking to others, figuring out, no, nothing is wrong with me. It’s okay to feel this way. We don’t normalize those feelings. We have this defensive reaction that makes us feel even more abnormal and weird, which is like the worst thing you could possibly do.

[00:09:29] Lora: Yes, yes. And that goes to that second part of the definition of betrayal. The break even of an expectation that ruptures your view of yourself or the world. When my view of myself is ruptured, when my view of the world, the way things should be, is ruptured, that’s a horrible feeling. That is an unsafe feeling that creates panic, that creates all kinds of feelings of instability.

A Betrayal of Expectations

[00:09:57] Heather: I totally understand now what you mean by betrayal in this context. I would posit that it’s still burnout. But it’s, it’s the. We all assume that burnout results from too many working hours, no boundaries, all these things, right?

[00:10:14] Lora: Yes.

[00:10:14] Heather: But I think those are symptoms.

[00:10:18] Lora: Yes.

[00:10:19] Heather: Of the root cause to why we choose to do the things that lead us down that path.

[00:10:26] Lora: Yes.

[00:10:26] Heather: And so what I think I’m hearing from you is they are interconnected. It’s. It is burnout. But it’s burnout not because of all those other reasons. It’s burnout. The root cause is often the betrayal, which then leads us to create the barriers to like all this other stuff, which then spirals us down further. Then we make choices that make things even worse. Is that correct?

Why Knowing The Root Cause Matters For Burnout Recovery

[00:10:47] Lora: Absolutely correct. Because burnout is technically the definition of burnout is stress, overwhelming stress that has been unsuccessfully managed. So a lot of the remedies, it’s problem, problem, solution. Are they matching up a lot of the remedies?

If you don’t know how to manage stress, learn how to better manage stress. Maybe a new scheduling system, maybe doing some breath work, maybe taking a walk, maybe doing some yoga. So then people start doing these things that they think is going to make the burnout better. Well, if it is just the inability to manage stress and it teaches you how to manage stress better, yes, it’s going to help. But like you said, it’s the root cause. If the root cause is I feel betrayed by life, I’m betraying myself by selling out to a dream that’s not my own, by not making myself a priority or prioritizing other things that are important to me and my values. Who cares if you breathe? Who cares if you take a walk? It’s not going to address the root cause.

[00:11:48] Heather: Which is why I’ve heard this before. It is why you got to the point of wait a second. I left the career behind. I became this person who was teaching mindfulness and mindset and all this stuff. Right. And stress management.

I was doing those things. I was living that life. And yet I still burned out. Which FYI, y’all dirty little secret in the self help wellness space is there’s a large number of people out there who teach this stuff who are also burning out and end up in burnout. And I can attest to it by the number of people who sign up for my legal mindset mastery toolkit.

They’re not all lawyers and a number of them are coaches that you can tell by their emails are in the wellness space. And I’m like, oh, I think you need more than just this.

[00:12:35] Lora: Uhhuh.

[00:12:36] Heather: Just from. See seeing that. Right?

[00:12:38] Lora: Yeah.

[00:12:38] Heather: And I like to tell my clients I get this comment a lot when I go do workshops on this.

It’s not about doing the things. These tools, yes, they are helpful, yes, they can do a lot for you, but they can’t fix everything. You got to get to the root, the root cause. And they can be useful tools in helping to discover the root cause. They can be useful tools in helping to get more self aware and then behind that, those feelings and figuring out what thoughts are leading me to make these choices. But that’s where their real power lies. And if you’re not able or willing to use them in that way, they’re not really going to help you because they’re not about just things you do. It’s not about adding 10 minutes of meditation a day to your life.

Step 1 For Burnout Recovery: Define Your Expectations

[00:13:22] Lora: Right, right. Exactly right. It’s not what you do. It’s who you are and how do you shift the way you show up? And the thing that I talk a lot about in my work is around expectations. Because betrayal is all about the breaking of expectations. Well, how often do you identify your expectations and are your expectations idealistic or realistic?

[00:13:43] Heather: Right.

Are They Idealistic or Realistic?

[00:13:44] Lora: And we need to figure that out. I can have all sorts of idealistic expectations. Do you think. Do you think that’s realistic? No. Then who am I setting up for failure? Me. So identify what those expectations are. Figure out if they’re idealistic or realistic. And then what I say, once you’ve identified them, are you communicating them to the appropriate people? Because if you’re not, then how do you ever expect those expectations will be met? And we’re lawyers. We should be excellent at advocacy. But we are horrible at advocating on behalf of ourselves and our expectations. And you can’t advocate on behalf of something you don’t know what it is. So start.

[00:14:25] Heather: That is true. Oh, yeah, no, I totally agree. So that I. We didn’t even ask you the question of what do you do? But it sounds like the starting point is self awareness and identification of what your expectations actually are.

[00:14:37] Lora: Yes. Yes. And sometimes it’s as simple as just asking yourself that question. What am I expecting from this interaction?

What am I expecting from this meeting? What am I expecting from this day? What am I expecting from my career and that. Getting uncomfortable?

[00:14:56] Heather: Oh, it’s absolutely uncomfortable. Which leads into one of my favorite topics, and I think it’s one of yours too, is this vulnerability that we lawyers love, love to shy away from because it feels so, so uncomfortable to get vulnerable. This is a very vulnerable thing. So what would you say to that?

A Note About Being Vulnerable

[00:15:18] Lora: I think with the vulnerability, the idea of vulnerability is more terrifying than actually being vulnerable.

[00:15:28] Heather: You’re right.

[00:15:32] Lora: And just do it. I mean, that sounds so simple. And so try start with people that you trust. Start with a colleague that you trust. Start with a partner, a friend, a family member, and just practice. Because it truly is less terrifying to do it than it is to think about doing it well.

[00:15:51] Heather: And I.

I don’t know if you know my story. My unique kind of past was breast cancer at the age of 38. And my kids were very young. And it was very, very bad prognosis. It did not look good from the beginning. So let me just say it’s a very vulnerable experience that you have no choice but to deal with because you’re in it, Right? Yes. And something it taught me though, a couple of things. But one thing was we’re all vulnerable Regardless of whether we want to admit it or not. And so why run away from it when if I could just face it and deal with it, I probably would be in a better position than if I’m ignoring it and pretending like it doesn’t happen? So that was a huge lesson that year that I learned that I’ve always kept with me. And you’re so right. When you are running away from that, it’s because you’re terrified, quote, unquote, Right. Air quotes again of that feeling. Yet you already have it. And it’s even worse because you’re terrified of it. So when you just do it and you sit with those feelings and you get behind what’s really going on, you suddenly realize, okay, yeah, it kind of sucks. It’s not like the best feeling in the world, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

And it gives you courage to keep going. And it’s. It’s. What this is how I think you build confidence for real, is you just allow yourself to sit with those feelings, be in them, and learn that I’m actually still okay.

[00:17:17] Lora: Yes, yes. You know, similar with my infidelity story. And for the record, my husband and I are still together after that. We worked through it. Let me tell you about all of the fears, all of the stress that came from going through infidelity. In my mind, I thought infidelity only happened to the kind of people that were on Jerry Springer. I thought it had to do with me personally. I thought nobody else in the world would have ever dealt with something like that. I thought I would be totally outcast, deciding to try to work things out with my husband. I thought I would be judged. I thought he would be judged. Had all of these fears built up, how it was going to impact me personally and professionally. And while, yes, there was an impact, it also ended up being this huge gift. And I know that can sound so Pollyanna, but being able to sit in the pain, being able to express all of that, to be able to connect authentically with people who had been through their own types of stories, it was so freeing, because here’s another lawyer thing. I kind of thought I had to be perfect. I thought I had to be perfect all the time. And being able to just be out there and be like, no, I’m not perfect. Life is messy. This doesn’t really have anything to do with me, But I’m dealing with it the best that I can. It connected me to people when I really thought it was going to drive people away from Me.

[00:18:48] Heather: Wow. So that’s really a powerful experience to go through. Kind of like it’s very different from my experience, but it is one of those things that changes our perception of ourselves, of other people, of the world, of how things really work. Right.

That’s so necessary, I think, for us to be able to let go of trying to control everything, let go of trying to be perfect, and allow ourselves to just be human.

[00:19:20] Lora: Yes. Yes. It’s huge. And you feel better, you feel more real. You feel by releasing control, you gain control. And then it’s not that. Oh, and burnout is instantly gone, and the sense of betrayal is instantly gone. But you’re more able to connect with the uncomfortable emotions in life. You’re more able to manage them, which brings a sense of peace. I can handle anything. If you’ve been through breast cancer, if I’ve been through this, I can handle anything. And I can do it with grace. And I can also do it with a sense of equanimity. And I can be fine. There can still be happy days.

[00:20:03] Heather: I think some of this really points out some of the why behind why so many attorneys suffer from burnout and how interconnected it. It is with us, our thinking, how we think, how we process our thoughts, what we think, the expectations that we have. And those expectations aren’t just about the expectation of the point A, the point B, the point C, the destination, but the expectations of ourselves that are super unrealistic.

Step 2: Know Who You Are

[00:20:38] Lora: Yes, yes.

There’s a lot of ego in the practice of law.

And there’s nothing wrong with striving to do better. There’s nothing wrong with striving to learn more, with serving people better. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that when we become that. I always talking about seeking to please, seeking to perform, and seeking to conform, please conform and perform. And when our entire identity becomes I am seeking, I am striving, we lose touch with who we are. An exercise that I always have my clients do. And I’ll ask the listeners to do it right now because it is so hard but so profound.

How would you introduce yourself if you couldn’t talk about your career, your relationship to others, your political party, your gender, your any of it, because most of us are. Hi, I’m Laura. I’m an attorney. I’m a mom, I’m a this, I’m a that. That tells me nothing about who you are, who are you without all of that. And when you can get back to that, that’s when you transcend burnout.

De-Coupling What You Do From Who You Are

[00:21:58] Heather: And I will Say there’s nothing more scary than being proposed that question and stepping back and saying, oh my gosh, I don’t know how to answer that right now. Yeah. And I gotta say it’s incredibly common for that to happen amongst a majority of attorneys. I think, especially once you’ve been practicing for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years and on we take on this role as though that’s who we are. And I will say that I don’t do a lot of this in my practice because I’m pretty picky. Most of what I do is business and leadership coaching. But I do have some clients who come to me with this identity crisis and the vast majority are very successful. They’ve been successful for a number of years and they’re to the point where they’re trying to succession plan or get out and they’re like, whoa, I can’t do this because this is who I am.

And they’ve realized, okay, that’s probably not true, but I have no clue how to figure out who I really am and I need help with that. And so I, I, I have a couple clients right now who are in that space. And it is so interesting to me how easy it is for us to get there and how incorrect we are about that, but how that is such a foundational piece to why so many of us end up burned out as well.

[00:23:22] Lora: Yes, yes. And there’s interesting overlays. I like that you mentioned that, because there’s interesting overlays. If I am my job and I’m trying to do some more leadership and to build a business, it matters on a different level. If I start a business and it doesn’t go that great. But I’m also very connected to my identity and my self worth and I’ve got a life.

Okay, my business didn’t succeed or my business took me five years to build instead of three years. But if I’m overly attached, if my identity is I am this business and then I am failing, it’s I personally am failing. It’s not my business is taking a little bit longer to get up and running, it’s I must be a bad person. And that spirals right back into that betrayal because this isn’t what I expected. My expectations have ruptured my view of myself. I thought I was smart, I thought I had a good business plan, I thought I had good leadership skills. I guess I don’t. I guess that must mean I’m a really bad person. And all of a sudden it’s like the rug has been Pulled out from under us.

[00:24:29] Heather: So what would you say to somebody in this space? They’re like, oh, my gosh, you’re describing me. I now can see that, yeah, I’m in a point of burnout. Or I’m getting there, I’m getting closer. And a lot of it, a lot of it has to do with this, this thing, this. This sense of betrayal which leads from. Leads from my expectations about what everything was supposed to be and who I’m supposed to be. And it’s. It’s led to a bunch of choices. Like, it’s so intertwined. It can feel super overwhelming to even admit this. Right.

[00:25:00] Lora: Yes. Yes.

[00:25:01] Heather: So what are some practical things they can start doing to kind of pull back from that and, and get to a better place? Obviously, I know help working with people is probably the like, but what. What else can they do?

Fueling Up To Transcend Burnout In The Legal Profession (For Good)

[00:25:13] Lora: I. I have a very simple acronym, and the acronym is Fuel Up. What can you do? You got to start fueling yourself up. What does that mean? The F means find your why. Why are you doing what you do? Why did you go to law school? I wanted to create justice in an unjust world. Why did you go? Maybe it was to make money so you could provide for your family better. Reconnect your why. Whatever it is, just. Just take a moment. Find your why. Remember why you did this.

Don’t judge it. Don’t be like, well, that’s a superficial reason. Just connect to it. The second the you in Fuel up is for, start uncovering that root, ask yourself, does it seem like burnout? Does it seem like betrayal? Does it seem like a broken expectation? Or do you need some better skills and tools on managing stress? Uncover what’s really going on.

The E in expectation is. Is for expectation management. Can you identify your expectations? Can you communicate them to somebody? And can you start advocating on behalf of them? If you can’t, they’re probably not realistic. The L in Fuel up, and this might sound trite, but it’s not. It’s for laughter. According to the Mayo Clinic, laughing is the number one way to calm and re regulate the nervous system. We have busy lives, we have stressful lives. We’re in charge of a lot of money, a lot of people’s futures. Yes, practicing law is hard, but you’ve got to find those moments of levity. Even if it’s just scrolling a bit on Instagram, following a comedian, making a list of people that you find funny, just going into the bathroom mirror and smiling at yourself, that can crack you up. It’s just finding Those moments to calm that nervous system so you can get back into the prefrontal cortex and start making rational decisions instead of reacting. And then the up in fuel up, that stands for unbroken promises to yourself.

[00:27:18] Heather: Those are always the promises we break first and the most.

[00:27:22] Lora: Always, always. And start small. If you say you’re going to start getting more sleep because you realize you don’t function well, tired, set an alarm for yourself, to turn off the phone, to log off of your computer and to go to bed early. Just find one way that you can make and then keep a promise to yourself. And when you fuel up, you do start fueling up self trust. You start fueling up your energy level. You start being able to manage either stress or a sense of betrayal more effectively because you’re not so depleted.

Firm Culture (& What Firm Leaders Can Do)

[00:27:59] Heather: Okay, all of these, I think, are wonderful recommendations. I want to flip a little bit before I let you go into. We’ve been talking and I think we need to talk about this in this way because it is ultimately up to each individual to identify what’s going on and help figure out, okay, what are my next steps? How do I get out of it? Nobody can do this for you.

[00:28:20] Lora: No.

[00:28:20] Heather: That being said, what role does firm and corporate culture play within this? And given that it’s kind of a two part question, what does firm and, you know, what do firm and corporate leaders need to be aware of? How can they, you know, create a better culture? I’m sure culture does have something to do with this as well. So what, what should they know?

[00:28:46] Lora: So we could talk, I think for two hours on that?

Yes. Culture matters. Yes. If you want to retain people, you do need to create a healthy culture. You do need to have dialogue. You do need to facilitate a conversation around that. Recognizing that people have different levels of tolerance. Some people are more resilient, some people are less resilient. Some people can plow through for 12 hours and not be exhausted. Some people need a break after three, their brain literally shuts down.

It’s having a conversation. So as a leader, as the firm. Yes. You need to have a conversation with your employees and not try to change them. Just listen, open yourself up to that experience. Because again, that’s expectations on both sides. What is the firm or the law department expecting? Let’s talk about those expectations. What are the employees expecting? Let’s we know contracts. It’s a meeting of the minds. Where is that meeting of the mind? If you can have conversations about expectations on both sides? Okay, we all meet on this. We don’t meet on this. What can we do to bridge the gap? It’s not right or wrong. What can we do to bridge that gap?

[00:29:58] Heather: Here’s what I would like to add to that mix. So having been in the firm life for so long, and I’m sure corporations do this too to some extent, but I know firms do this.

They have these annual meetings with their attorneys, and most even have them once you’re a shareholder or a partner. And it’s usually more like, here’s where you need to do, here’s what you need to do. There’s a. And there are assumptions about what other people might want before ever going into that. I think it would be a much healthier conversation and frankly, a much more beneficial conversation, not just for the employee, but also for firm leadership. To start with expectations. Here’s our expectations, here’s what we see in light of those expectations, and then open it up for what are yours. Right. Where do you see yourself a year from now, three years from now, five years from now? How would you like to get there so that you can get a meeting of the minds set? Because there is this assumption that everybody’s on the same, like lockstep, A, B, C, D, E. Which is not correct.

[00:31:06] Lora: Right.

[00:31:06] Heather: These people who are really great as a result of that, because there’s never a conversation and then there’s never a, oh, well, given that we might change our expectations then of you. And the thing that’s funny about that, about this lockstep thought process that most law firm management goes through that I find incredibly interesting, is very few people actually follow that. Even the people who make partner. You know, there are some that if you have an 8 to 10 to 12 year track, make it a year 7 or 8, like the superstar, like they’re ahead. Then there’s the ones that it’s 12, 13, like, there’s all the people are all over the place.

[00:31:46] Lora: Yeah.

[00:31:47] Heather: And if you actually look at the numbers, most of them don’t follow the same track at all. So why not make this conversation instead of, okay, do abcde? Okay, here are our expectations given what we see, but let’s open it up for yours. Right?

[00:32:03] Lora: Yes.

[00:32:03] Heather: I think they. The culture could change drastically just from having that conversation with everybody they meet with.

[00:32:10] Lora: Absolutely. Because then you know where people are at. And that’s what it is. It’s that knowledge. Knowledge is power.

I was at a legal wellness event this summer, this fall, and they did a study of the interns over the summer. Of the interns. I’m not exactly clear on the numbers. I’m estimating, but it was something like. Of the hundred summer interns, when interns, when they asked how many of you want to make partner? It was like two or three said they wanted to make partner. The others valued lifestyle more than making partner. Well, when the firm is coming in with the assumption that all new associates want to make partner, and we’re going to give them this roadmap and we’re going to push them, they’re going to lose people. It’s expensive to lose people. It’s expensive to recruit. It’s expensive to train. You want to keep your people.

So, yes, talk about your expectations. Talk about their expectations, usually. And the groups that I’ve worked with, there is a fit. There is this magical, miraculous fit. The people who want to achieve partner can start taking that track. The people who want to be in the middle, pick that. The people who want to prioritize lifestyle pick that. And then everybody flows. But you’ve got to talk about it.

[00:33:27] Heather: Yeah. And I would even posit that there are people who think they don’t want to be. That might change their mind in that type of a culture, because it may have a fit for them at some point in time. Or maybe it’s more of a circumstantial. This is not a great place. I have young children. I don’t want to be there. But, you know, maybe the track is just different and they still get there. I think we think in two concrete, simple terms as a. And if we would just expand that, talk more about this, we would retain more people. We would retain more good people. We would have better client service. And some of these people who initially think, no, I’ll never be partner actually can be and can be incredibly productive at it, just at a different stage than what you would have anticipated.

[00:34:15] Lora: Yeah. It’s all that conversations, and it’s all around expectations. And again, if the firm maybe is. Or leadership is not identifying what their expectations are, they’re just following along because it’s always been this way. Well, let’s talk about that. Maybe that’s not what we want to create anyway.

[00:34:33] Heather: Well, I would. I would say this. We keep doing what’s always been done.

[00:34:38] Lora: Yes.

[00:34:38] Heather: And we keep leading in depression, in drug and alcohol abuse, in stress and anxiety. Perhaps it’s time to do things a little bit differently.

[00:34:50] Lora: Yes, perhaps.

[00:34:51] Heather: Maybe.

Okay, so I think this has been a fabulous conversation, and it’s a great place probably to stop for today. But before I let you go, why don’t you let people know where they can find you and how they connect with you online.

[00:35:06] Lora: Yeah, absolutely. My website is workplace-burnout.com and if you go to burnout or betrayal.com you can download my Burnout Uncovered guide. And it’s a way to facilitate candid conversations in service of thriving teams and more honest conversations. Just what we were talking about. So burnout or betrayal.com wonderful.

[00:35:32] Heather: And I will put links in the show notes so everybody can find this really, really easily. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful conversation.

[00:35:40] Lora: Thank you very, very, very needed. And thank you for facilitating.