Welcome to Life and Law. This is your host, Heather Moulder And today we have a special guest. I know I say that every time and all of my guests are awesome, but today truly is special. It's a little bit different. We could go a little bit longer. I'm actually recording this after the fact for once and I. I'm just really honored to have today's guest on the podcast. You will soon find out why. So today's guest, her name is Ariella Cohen Coleman. She is the founder of Ariella Law PC the Wellness Esquire and Chosen.

The mission of her law firm is to provide legal support to world changers of all types and and it is run by a world changer herself. The Wellness Esquire was founded to help shift the legal industry to value, and I mean really value, the connection between well being and performance, build community and direct lawyers to resources that will help them thrive. And as if that wasn't enough, she founded chosen after the October 7th massacre of Jews. She is a Jew herself and the

[00:01:52] Heather: goal of this organization is very simple. To build meaningful professional and personal relationships among Jewish people and their allies and to help protect the Jewish community.

I first became aware of Ariella a few months back on LinkedIn and immediately knew I wanted her on the podcast to talk about a host of issues, including lawyer well being, being unafraid to speak up regardless of the consequences and regardless of the fact that not everybody is going to agree with you, and leading a values based life in law practice. She is the epitome of doing just that.

[00:02:31] Heather: Welcome Ariella.

[00:02:33] Ariella: Thank you so much. I'm excited to chat with you.

[00:02:36] Heather: I am super excited to have you today and oh gosh, it's interesting because we didn't meet that long ago, but it feels like we've known each other a while just because the conversations we've had.

Yeah, we're very well aligned. Say that. Which is why I wanted you on the podcast. So let's start at the beginning. You have your own law firm and you travel the world with your law firm. So talk a little bit. I think it's interesting to me, especially your mission around care, self care, wellness.

You know, obviously you're very intentional and how you're doing this. And I think there's a lot of lawyers out there who believe that they can't.

I can't possibly, you know, have a law firm that's different. I can't possibly travel and still practice law. All these things.

So tell me about kind of what. How did you make this decision? When did you make this decision?

Just a little bit of background on that.

[00:03:37] Ariella: Sure.

Well, first I'll say if you decide you can't, you are correct.

And I think that's like the foundational piece to understand. And if you decide you can't, you are correct.

If you decide it's something that's important to you and you want to, something you want to do, you will find a way to make it work in a way that works for you, which will be different than the way something similar might work for the next person over, because we are all different.

Where my law firm came, so the law firm came first.

I had been at another firm and I. I'm a very mission oriented firm person and that's what drove me to law school. That's what's driven each aspect of my career.

And I wasn't feeling sufficiently, just like I was doing something for a cause. I wasn't feeling, it was. It just wasn't feeling like the right fit anymore.

And I had already been thinking for a bit around, what do I want to do instead?

What will feel right? What kind of people do I want to work with? What kind of impact do I want to have? What might all of this look like? And you know, part of that was also thinking about, well, and how can I do it in a way that allows me to live the life that I want and to feel good, feel good in my body, feel good in my life, and feel good about the actual work that I was doing.

And I was thinking about going in house. I didn't know exactly where, but that was what I was aiming toward. And then October 7th happened and pretty immediately everything changed for me.

And a lot of what that everything was, that changed was an awareness of how I needed to spend my time and my energy.

Some of the work that I had been doing just immediately felt like, like this doesn't matter. Like, sure, like it mattered. Like, but like what, what impact is this having in the world? Like it's so Small and I was talking to colleagues also other, other Jewish colleagues who were like, like me, like still pretty passionate about what we were doing, even if we were feeling a little bit lost with exactly what that, what the career looked like in the moment. And we were all just feeling like what are we doing? Like what, what are we doing with this work? It doesn't mean anything, it doesn't matter, but we're killing ourselves over it sometimes and like, who cares?

And then October 7th hit and I started doing a lot of advocacy work without any real strategy and, and plan. And one of the things that I was doing was I, I also have a business called the Wellness Esquire, which we'll get into. And the aim around that is to transform the legal industry into one that values and champions the connection between well being and sustainable peak performance.

And so with that in mind, I already had the awareness and my own personal experience of like, hey, we as lawyers are often not, not doing great. We're struggling. You know, we tend to be in that, you know, very type a maladaptive, perfectionist type of mindset, workaholic, beating ourselves up about everything, burnout, all of that stuff.

And so many of us were already kind of struggling in different ways. And certainly in my community, well now Jewish lawyers are going to be struggling even more because this is wildly traumatic.

And so I just thought, all right, so I'll just take care of the Jewish lawyers. I'm just going to bring Jewish lawyers together to be not okay together.

And that was meaningful for people. So I started doing that work and just, it started out with just being oriented around lawyer, Jewish lawyer well being. And then it started to expand not just around lawyer well being, but also around okay, we're, we're lawyers. Most of us in this now growing group are Jewish, but not all. And we've got skills. What can we do to address this unbelievable anti Semitism that we saw erupt immediately after you know, the, the, the, the murder of Jews and Israelis and people just in Israel, even if they weren't Jewish or Israeli on October 7th. So anti Semitism, we're lawyers. What can we do? So I was coordinating lawyers on what are we going to do with our skills.

And that ended up leading to different clients a lot. I mean at the time it was all pro bono work. Um, but it ended up leading to a client that ultimately is like a big. Became a big part of why I left and launched my own firm. And what happened there was so this is the client other, they're very public about me Being the lawyer. So I'll share. The American Jewish Medical association, they started out as a WhatsApp group with a bunch of Jewish doctors going, oh, my God, we don't have a group. There's all this anti Semitism going on, including specifically in medicine. Jews, as healthcare providers and as patients are not safe.

And they were seeing it live, they were experiencing it. They were afraid for themselves, they were afraid for their patients.

So they started to come together to figure out, what do we do?

Both from an active activism point of view, from a patient care point of view, and also from just a togetherness and just cultural community kind of angle.

And anyways, I met them from, you know, the founder, from the very, very start, and they became a client. I, you know, formed them.

And that led to.

I had a. Just had a moment of, oh, I'm just supposed to have my own firm now and do this. I had that. And what happened specifically, actually, was that the founder texted me one day and just said, you know, people are always asking us, who's your lawyer? And I just say, ariella, but what's the name of your firm?

And from that I just went, oh, I think I'll just have my own firm. And it's funny because it's not like I didn't know friends or colleagues who had their own law firms. I did. And I'd had people who had said over the years, like, why don't you just go out on your own? And I'd be like, no. And the primary reason that I always said no was, was I didn't know everything yet.

[00:10:02] Heather: You're never gonna know everything. Okay.

[00:10:04] Ariella: As it turns out, I am now comfortable with that. But I felt so daunted by just. But how can you launch a law firm and not know everything you're supposed to. We're as lawyers, right? We're supposed to have all of the answers. We're not supposed to have any vulnerability, any weakness. Like, we should be all knowing and perfect.

It turns out none of that's true, but that often is what sits in our minds even as we start sort of developing a healthier mindset. There's always something more to kind of peel back and process.

So that. That was just the moment where it hit me. And what helped me get to the point where as soon as that kind of message came in, in a way that allowed me to just go, oh, now's the time. This is what it's going to be. Duh.

It was, I mean, certainly, I think, years of just, like, a lot of self Work slowly, you know, getting where I wanted to be. But more of it was the immediate just like change in who I was and how I operated in the world after October 7th. And what I mean by that specifically is I just had no time for any bullshit.

Like the people pleasing tendencies, they just went away. I mean I say all this, I'm sure there's still little things that. But like largely I just, I just stopped caring about like what are people going to think about me? Do they agree with what I'm doing? Do I, you know, kind of have quote unquote permission to do this thing? Like I don't know who I was trying to ask permission to, but you know, just this sense of like, well, it's different than what everybody else does. Is that okay, it seems weird and people don't seem to get it and all of those concerns kind of stemming around things like again the people pleasing, the external validation and, and just like questions around is this right? And what if it's wrong and what if I don't know what I'm doing and I haven't done it before and what if I don't do it perfectly and what if I make a mistake and just all those kinds of self limiting beliefs and you know, maybe you know, self criticism and lowering my sense of like what I could do. It just, I didn't have time for it and I just started, I just started doing.

Because I had to, I just had to.

[00:12:15] Heather: So. Okay, couple of things here that I'm going to note.

I. You hear this a lot. Somebody has something happen either to them personally or something big happens right within the culture society that massively like stops them in their tracks.

And this is often the precursor to major change in your life. Like for, for me, cancer was a big deal, right?

It changed my outlook, it changed my perception of things in a way that ultimately ended up changing what I wanted to do for a living.

Not immediately at that time, but it did eventually lead me out. And you hear this again and again again. So yours, you had the. And it's funny because all of us this happens to, we can go back and go, well, there were always these things in the back of my mind like you can pinpoint. And what I find interesting about that and I've come to realize is many of us have those things and then never do anything because we don't have that event that happens to us. And I find that incredibly sad.

We have to have that big horrible event that forces us to go. I don't care anymore what people Think I don't care about whether I fail. Ultimately, this is what I'm going to do. I don't have time to worry about those things. I'm just going to go do it.

I wish more people would just do the thing.

[00:13:39] Ariella: Absolutely. And it's interesting to think about that from the angle of, like, man, I wish more people had something really traumatic happen to them so they could do the thing that they really want to do. Yeah, it'd be great if we could just, like, get there on our own. But, you know, I also, like, think about one of the things that ultimately led to the Wellness Esquire was I got my sixth concussion.

I think it was 2018. Yeah. That's its own set of stories related to a whole complex health history, which I'm also very open about.

But in a nutshell, I got that concussion. I was very resistant to accepting that it was a concussion, and I tried to. First, I just denied that it was one

[00:14:23] Heather: that's not gonna work out real well, but it was not great.

[00:14:28] Ariella: It was. I mean, it was so clear that that's what was going on, but I. I really stubbornly resisted, and. And I tried to push through it for a month. That was a terrible idea. And it was also completely not something I could do. I had four weeks in a row where I would go into the office.

I don't remember if it was just Monday, Tuesday, or if I also managed to get in for Wednesday. But whether it was the first two days or three, by the middle of the week or so, I. I simply couldn't. And I would have to take the rest of the week off. And it was the first time I'd been unable to push through something. And it was. So. That was an identity crisis. Who am I if I can't push through absolutely everything? And I. I say that having pushed through some absolutely insane things, mostly medical, to a degree that's. In hindsight, I can see as, like, that was. It was not safe, but I did it. And that was part of who I was. But it was also the thing that helped me learn once I. Because I took.

After the month of, oh, wow, this is really not working. I was forced to take time off. And it was horrifying initially.

And I was so afraid of, what's this going to do to my career? What are people going to think about me that I can't push through a head drama? And I was so bored at the beginning and so afraid.

And then it was amazing because I started to find myself again. I started to feel Creative again. I started to remember the reason I had gone to law school in the first place, which had nothing to do with like any of this ladder climbing stuff or, you know, what, what it looked like from the outside. It was because my dad died from cancer when I was 17.

I, before that thought I was going to have a career in fashion.

Talk about like, you know, traumatic, very dangerous, your life course. And after he died, I spent.

When I was in college, if I wasn't in class, I was doing something American Cancer Society related.

And that experience, you know, in those early years of, of starting to grieve, I became really aware of how fortunate my family had been, as weird as that sounds, because we'd had the, the access and the resources to that allowed. My dad, we lived in Connecticut.

We, we were, we. We were close enough to the city into, to New York that my, my parents were able to go in to Sloan when he needed treatment. His dad, my dad's, you know, colon cancer. His main specialist was the number one colon cancer specialist in the world.

You know, we had the, the kinds of friends who had the kinds of jobs that they could take off and bring, you know, from a day and drive my parents in and out of the city. My mom was able to not work. It's not like we were loaded. We just had. She was able to not work so she could fight with the insurance companies every day and get his care covered. And you know, so these kinds of things just helped me realize, oh my God, like we're, we. We had him for four years longer than anyone expected in large part because of these things. What about everybody else who just doesn't have that kind of access and those resources?

I have to fix that. So that was like, essentially what, what led me to law school was I've had this really traumatic life experience.

And even as traumatic as it was for me, it could be even more traumatic for somebody else if they didn't have these, these resources that we did, you know, and I. What just what you were noting about.

Often when you have these big traumatic experiences and then it catapults you into something next. I've sometimes thought about like I, I have friends or I come across people who also had a really big loss early on and it allowed them from that early age to not get kind of stuck in the small things in ways that I really always did. And so I, I would think about sometimes like I had a really traumatic loss. Why do I still care so much about what people think about me? And why do I worry so much about mistakes and all this kind of stuff that I understood to a certain extent how much it was holding me back.

I think some of it was also I was really sick. My twin sister and I had all sorts of health problems. And so I think I just. Part of it was like a lack of bandwidth of like, how much can you manage at one time? And then just the growth around that. It just, it was October 7th. That just made all of the noise go away and just helped me take all of the slow lessons I'd been, you know, kind of going through for many years and just kind of nailed them. And I was like, oh, this is who I am. This is what's important to me. I'm. I'm not going to pretend that's it's not what it, what it is. Here we are, let's go.

Wow.

[00:19:20] Heather: So, okay, your current practice, you. What kind of law do you practice?

[00:19:26] Ariella: I practice now really across areas, across industries and with, with clients of different sizes, mostly businesses.

I, I work with clients mainly as a fractional general counsel. Okay. But I also have different subscription tiers, so it might be a little bit, you know, less than what I would consider a fractional dc and then a lot of contract work, a lot of. So I dropped the billable hours. So I do a mix of monthly subscription tiers and, you know, value based or flat fee, you know, for, for discrete projects.

[00:20:00] Heather: And you practice from all over the place? All over the world.

[00:20:03] Ariella: You travel all over the world.

[00:20:05] Heather: Mostly beaches because as we discussed before, I hit record. You like places that are hot.

[00:20:13] Ariella: I do. I'm from the east coast and I am striving to never be cold ever again.

[00:20:18] Heather: Okay. I, I'm with you on that. Actually. I can't stand being cold. Cannot stand it.

[00:20:24] Ariella: Yeah, I would much prefer to be hot. You're welcome to go do that. I have no interest. And I'm going to try to never, never be cold ever again. It's working out greatly.

[00:20:34] Heather: So how have you, like, how hard? Easy. Like, what have you had to think about structurally to support yourself?

Because you're in different time zones, oftentimes from your clients, you're in, you know, like you're, you're all over the place and you sometimes go to places that may not have the best Internet access

[00:20:56] Heather: or, you know, especially in those lovely Southern hemisphere beach resorts type places. So talk a little bit about how you've managed that.

[00:21:07] Ariella: Sure. Well, on the last note, just with Internet, we have a Starlink, which we got after an experience in Costa Rica where the Entire town lost Internet. And everybody went to the one coffee shop that had a Starlink.

And I did have calls even when that happened. And so I took them from a coffee shop. And you know what? Nobody cared. And not even that. It's not that nobody cared. People were amused and entertained. The kinds of clients. I think a big part of how this works is I'm.

I don't need every. Every possible client out there to be my client. The clients that I want are the clients that, like, either feel neutral to, like, super duper excited about the way I'm living, and my clients are like, no one's neutral. Like, everyone's somewhere between, like, oh, how cool to like, wow, I'm so jealous. Wait, before we get into this, like, tell me about, you know, where you are, what's going on. I'm living vicariously through you.

And so, you know, it. It works because I decide to make it work. And, you know, even before we started living all over the world, I had clients in different time zones. You figure that out. And what I kind of get a kick out of now is I sometimes will have calls with people who are, you know, sitting whatever, in San Francisco or in Miami or, you know, wherever, and their Internet is suffering and mine is fine. Well, and we lived in Santa Barbara, which is where we lived before we stopped living anywhere.

Our Internet sucked all the time. It was awful. And so, you know, it's. It's not necessarily about the traveling the world piece. It's just about, okay, how are you going to make it work?

And, you know, the other parts of how. How we make it work is, is we just decide to, you know, I'm. I communicate well with my clients.

We are thoughtful about, you know, what time zones are we going to be in a lot of the time? More recently, we're in.

In time zones that are just a little bit easier to navigate with us time zones. But also last summer we spent a bunch of time in Greece and Thailand and, you know, Israel and like, that. Those parts of the world. And the time zones are harder. So, okay, sometimes I have meetings at 6am it's not my favorite thing to do, but I can do it, you know, so it's just about deciding what your priorities and your values are. Where are you going to make exceptions and just. And just deciding that that's what you're going to do and making it work. And if it didn't, we wouldn't do this.

[00:23:43] Heather: Right. So there's an intentionality piece. Obviously. You're very intentional.

[00:23:47] Ariella: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:47] Heather: But I like. So I want to point out, you know, I talk a lot about building a values aligned practice.

And you said something at the very beginning is, look, you don't need or want to represent everybody you possibly could.

And that is true of all of us. That is something that if you want a practice that actually fills your cup as opposed to pulls too much from you, you must accept that it is the defining piece, period.

[00:24:21] Ariella: And I'll tell you, I'll tell you this. So I, my, my firm is growing, which is really exciting, but it's also overwhelming at times, especially in a way, especially because I have this awareness around well being and therefore like managing my bandwidth and taking, taking care of myself and making sure I'm not totally overloaded. It's really hard to grow at exactly the right pace while like always nailing, taking care of yourself. And I can tell you for sure I am not always nailing it. And this was a week in particular and in fact this, this month that it's, it's just, it's a busier month. You don't always know when your clients are going to all like pop up at the same time with all, you know, urgent ish or, you know, matters or things they're considering urgent or whatever it is timely.

And so I've had a lot on my plate. It's also an emotionally heavy month for me because it's the month that has the day my dad died, the day he went into a coma, his birthday, other people died. There's just like, it's heavy and it's a month when I meant to take more time to myself and just because of client needs, wasn't able to. And I don't yet have all of the structure in place and all of the, the attorneys working with like, it, it's. I'm still building and so it hasn't been perfect. And I had a couple of really inconsequential mistakes, but just a couple of things where I was like, oh my God, you worked too. Like, you worked past tired. You knew you should have stopped. Why didn't you stop things and like mistakes that like, don't, you know, like the easiest ones to, to fix, like the ones that just don't matter at all. But still you're like, oh my God, Estelle, I made a mistake. What? Ugh, you don't want to.

But for me, those things are so very useful sometimes because some, you know, they can be the, for me, the key to just help me go, okay, now listen to yourself. You already knew you Were pushing too hard. Now stop it. And what I, what I loved about this was I had, I had a little thing and I was like, oh. And I was briefly annoyed with myself. I emailed my client and just said, hey, I, I've had a couple of things in the last day or two where I just, I realized I was moving too fast. So if you notice me being a little bit slower to respond, that's on purpose. Because my goal isn't to be fast. My goal is to be effective and correct and supportive.

Which by the way, is also part of why I don't engage with clients by text, except for the, the most rare occasions around, like scheduling.

And my client's response was, give yourself some slack. Like you're working, like, sure, you're working from paradise, but you're working your ass off. And it's because you're so good at what you do and appreciated that you're like super in demand. That's great.

All good. And I'm here for you if you just want to chat. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm doing this right.

[00:27:22] Heather: That is what it means to build a values aligned practice because you end up with people like that as your.

[00:27:27] Ariella: Exactly. And her message to me, it helped me immediately, you know, just kind of get over those couple of mistakes which like I was managing pretty. I've gotten much better at. We all are going to make mistakes. They're just going to happen.

We don't like it, but they will. And the, the, the goal is to then learn how to understand them, learn from them, move through and not dwell and just go into, oh my God, I'm an idiot. Like I should just hide for the rest of my life.

And I've gotten much better at just having a much productive growth mindset approach to that. But still, like, I don't like them. And that message just made me go, oh, okay, I'm going to get over this now. And what a good job I've done with building this practice that when I do make a mistake, I mean especially helpful, that it doesn't matter, but like that's the response that I get, that I have support from my clients to help me take care of myself. And her part of her message was like, yeah, slow down, you're good. It's all good.

[00:28:29] Heather: Perfect example of what I'm talking about. So this is so awesome.

[00:28:32] Ariella: It's so cool that that can be done. Like, who tells us that? Right?

[00:28:37] Heather: I mean it absolutely can, anyone can do this. You can even do this in big law because this is what I did. In big law, you can be, you have real boundaries.

Only take on clients that fit your values, your personality.

You know, they need to be a good fit. Get to know them in not just as a lawyer, but as their strategic partner, as you know, in a deeper way and have these types of relationships. I had that when I was out for cancer. My clients called me not because they wanted me to know about what was going on at work.

They had other attorneys at the firm. They knew they were taken care of. And yes, I would ask and they realize, heather, don't worry about it. Like, I want to see how you're doing. How are you? Do you need anything? Like, we had real relationships with one another and I knew they cared about me as a person and I cared about them as people. And it's just such a better way to practice.

[00:29:33] Ariella: It's such a better way to practice. And you know, you mentioned the strategic partnering part.

It's so much easier to do that and I think more effective also if you have this relation, if you actually have like a real relationship with your clients. Because, and this is also a big part of why I don't use the billable hour. I have a bunch of reasons for that, but one of them is I don't want my clients to be wondering, is this question or comment worth me, you know, paying for?

Because the. To the last person who should be deciding if it's worth telling your lawyer is the client. How would they know? That's why they have us. And some of these things, like, maybe it's not like a legal issue yet, but maybe it could become that or maybe, you know, there's, there's so much overlap. You know, my clients tend to be business clients. I also have, you know, individual clients where, you know, do I flat fees for, you know, just making sure like, you know, people know what they're signing when they sign with a new company. Those. But most of my clients are businesses and there's often a lack of awareness around how much overlap there is between business and legal.

And when they feel like you're just part of the team and they can just tell you all the things that are going on and you know, have it start with like, here's what my weekend was like. And by the way, I had this weird call about this thing going on and that, you know, that department or you know, this weird project and, and, and I can just be part of all of that.

And most of it's not, not really legal related, but then there's that One thing that they say, and I'm like, wait, can you just.

Let's go, let's go back over that.

Let's dig in a little. And they might have had no idea that that was something they should tell.

And maybe it's no big deal, but maybe it is or maybe it will be if they go in one direction and you get there by having a real relationship.

[00:31:30] Heather: Absolutely. I would say the billable hour does hurt us in that area.

I would say you could still navigate it with the billable hour. You just have to deal with it appropriately. It's easier if you're not doing the billable hour.

[00:31:43] Ariella: There's a way to do anything.

[00:31:45] Heather: Yeah.

[00:31:45] Ariella: You know, I, I'm not. When I, I think usually when I talk about like, you know, billing models, I have the way that I like to do it and I'm also still trying out like different variations and I, I track my hours for my own operational purposes. But it, you know, if the billable hour works for you, great.

It, you know, it's not. I, I think with a lot of these things it's about, I think the billable hour doesn't work for a lot of us. And I don't think it's often not great for the client either. But I think with almost I'm going to say everything, there's a way to do it to make it work better. So even if you're stuck in a model that you don't love, or you're just not ready to try something totally new, because it does take, you know, time to get used to something new, there's still ways to make anything work, even in a sub optimal situation.

[00:32:37] Heather: Yes, absolutely. Okay, so you've mentioned it a couple times, but we haven't really gotten into what the Wellness Esquire is. So tell us a little bit about what that is.

[00:32:49] Ariella: The Wellness Esquire.

I mean, it was born out of this concussion that I had. And, and the, the part that really led to the, the Wellness Esquire was I was, I was really having a hard time recovering and, and getting back to myself. I was, I was a mess.

And I ended up, it was, it was really hard to find anyone who really was a specialist in concussions. Frighteningly, even most concussion specialists are not actually up to date with the most recent concussion science.

And so I was really struggling and I ended up finding a neurologist.

And part of his protocol for concussion recovery involved nervous system related practices and things like meditation and mindfulness and just a certain kind of awareness around food and what you're putting into your body and how you're taking care of yourself and how you're spending your time and your energy and just what you're exposing yourself to.

And I felt desperate and so I was like, I'll try anything but this seems stupid. How is like meditating going to heal my injured brain? But again, desperation. And so I, I started doing the things that he was recommending and started to get better. And I was doing other things too. But it was everything I can now see in hindsight certainly that everything that helped me was nervous system related.

And as I was recovering I was able to also recognize that slowing down and taking care of myself from a more proactive, well being angle helped me feel better and also perform better. Better.

Wild. Shockingly crazy. And this was also like counter to.

It's not like I, you know, I used to, I would like go to yoga and Pilates and these sorts of things, but I would wake up, it was about checking the box and being like a hardcore. I did it today. Haha. I win. As opposed to like I am taking care of myself. This is good for me. I'm doing what my body, I'm listening to my body. It was, it was about winning, it was about being hardcore. You know, it was, it wasn't, I was, I was coming at it from a very different approach and, and even with my, my complex health stuff, the things that I was doing, which included like working out in, in the ways that at the time I could and, and, but again it was not about really listening to myself and doing what was best for me. It was about checking off boxes and being a tough person or a hardcore, I mean my like a kick ass hardcore. Like that's what I was aiming to be, to not be, I don't know, weak.

And it wasn't getting me the same kinds of results.

Again. Wild. And then so, so I started the Wellness Esquire during COVID I'd already had that kind of initial concussion in the recovery period. And then during COVID you know, all networking went online and that's when so many of us like discovered that LinkedIn could be more than just like a resume.

[00:36:19] Heather: Yes.

[00:36:20] Ariella: You know, website.

And I started connecting with mainly women lawyers and I was, you know, becoming part of these chats and I would discover that so many of us had gone through something because we're people and those of us who had like at least to a certain degree figured out what worked for us and the, the lawyers that I was coming across who seemed happier and were Taking better care of themselves and felt like they had some semblance of, like, the life and career integration that they wanted, or at least it was on the way.

It was, I'm gonna say, really always after they'd all had some sort of hitting the fan experience.

And I just was like, well, what if didn't have to hit the fan first?

What if we could all just help each other out from the beginning and teach each other across the industry and then within, like, you know, communities, like, how do we set ourselves up for success from the start? And then when things start to go awry, we help each other have it not go more awry than absolutely necessary.

And so I started so, and I started posting on, you know, on LinkedIn around that time. And it, it felt really daunting to do so because what I was posting about was, well, what I, what I started with posting about was my experience as a lawyer with really complex and quote, unquote, rare diseases.

And I started doing that because I had been very explicitly told at one point and then implicitly guided on many other occasions, never talk about your health. Don't do it, It'll be career suicide. You're not allowed to. And I was a rule follower and I wanted to win. So I was terrified of, you know, so I didn't, but I primarily didn't. And then if I felt like I really, really had to, I was so nervous and I just never felt like I could show up authentically. And, you know, there were certainly. It's not like I was looking to walk into rooms and say, hey, guys, before we get into the meeting purpose, you know, I always want to talk about me first, make sure everybody knows where I'm coming from, my whole story. That's not what I was looking to do. I just wanted to feel like I could walk around and be like, this is who I am. Here's my story, by the way. Here's how it relates to the work that I do now and why am not just good at this professionally like you might be, but I also come from the work I was doing at the time, which was around public health. I come from it, you know, with personal experience.

And anyways, I, I, I got to a point of just feeling like I was, I just wasn't okay with how not me I was and feeling like I wasn't allowed to talk about who, who I was. And especially in, in work context where I'm like, I, again, at the time of the work I was doing, I felt like I've been the patient that you people in this room are trying to, quote, unquote, help, but you're not. This isn't it. And I'm not allowed. I felt like I'm not allowed to say the things, because I'm supposed to be here as a lawyer, not as a patient who's part of the population that you're literally trying to have this policy, legislation, whatever effect.

But I'm. And so it was just, it wasn't good for me. And I had never doubted whether I'd be able to do whatever I wanted to do.

But my health was a really big challenge.

And I, I'm fortunate in that I'm a twin, and my twin is now a doctor, and we were in law school and med school at the same time, so. And she had the same health stuff for the most part. And so we had each other to be like, wow, this is really hard. And it seems to be a lot harder for people who don't seem to have these kinds of health problems, which seems to be pretty much everyone around us, but here we go, we got this. Oh, my God, I'm so tired.

And, But I just felt like, God, it would have been nice if I had known someone or even known of someone, a lawyer who had gone through something I could relate to even a little bit, who I could look to and, and have them just say, yep, here are some tips. Or just, I understand it's tough and that's it. And I just, I posted one day, and it's not like I just posted one day. Like, I thought about it and I asked, you know, some other lawyers for, like, what do you think? And the advice was, don't do it. But I just, I, I, I just was at a point where I, I just was compelled to do it. And I posted about again, like, hey, I'm a lawyer and I've got this complex and, you know, quote, unquote, rare disease history. And I don't remember the rest of the post, but I do know that I was then flooded with messages because as it turns out, I was not the olden lawyer complex health stuff going on.

I genuinely, as insane as it is now for me to think about, I genuinely thought that that was the case because we didn't talk about it. We were told not to. We just didn't think we were allowed to or whatever it was. And, and then I was flooded with messages, and so I just kept going. And, and one of the messages was, I mean, a bunch stand out, but this one always stands out the most. It was A law student who had just been diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. And she had like, just, just like, I think within days before I'd posted and had been wondering, how am I going to do this?

And she saw my post, and by the way, she is now, all these years later, she is a lawyer. And so when I saw her message in particular, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I think posting was the right thing because the, the point with anything I post is like, well, if, if one person benefits. And by the way, you may never know because, you know, not everyone's going to reach out, but a lot of them do.

And if you're impacting one person to believe, oh, maybe I can do this, or this is the message I needed to see.

Like, that's, that's the whole point.

So anyways, I, I started posting in that way, just like, very authentically about my, my history and the values I was developing and starting to be aware of, of what I wanted in my career and my life and how those should integrate. And I started, you know, creating different ways for lawyers to shift, share with each other, you know, sometimes in Zoom events and in a blog, and now it's a podcast with lawyers just talking about the real stuff, because we all have real stuff. And I am so confident that there are more of us that share this view that we can be really kick ass at what we do in our careers and fit that beautifully within the lives that we want and do it in a way that feels good and doesn't come with compromises that hurt us.

There are more of us who, who want that than aren't. I know it. It's just that we're quieter and we haven't found each other yet. So my, my intention with the Wellness Esquire is let's get all of these stories out there and let's talk about all of the things physical health, mental health, loss, trauma, anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome, mistakes, failure, anger, like, like all. I mean, these are just some of the things like alcoholism. These are all topics that like, have already been covered on the, on the podcast and they're coming out, we're talking about it, and people are feeling less alone, which is so important.

And then, you know, next phases are going to be, you know, membership, community, so everybody can just can find each other. I, I was just.

Someone made an intro recently and I was talking to a lawyer who's. She just went out on her own and we met and immediately became fast friends. And she said to me, I only just found out that there's like this whole group of. There's like a secret club of happy lawyers that I didn't know about.

And I was like, yes, there are. And the fact that it feels like a secret is a problem.

[00:44:45] Heather: That is a problem.

[00:44:46] Ariella: Right. And so I. What I'm. What I want to be building with the Wellness Esquire is this space where like, as soon as someone finds us, they can then find everything, whether it's the firm they want to join, the person they want to hire, whether it's a lawyer or someone who's like, hey, I'm looking for a coach, a coach slash consultant who can help me with my business development in a way that is value aligned because I need that guidance. And they can see in there. Oh, Heather. Looks interesting because there are so many of us who are bringing really different important experiences and expertise to the table to help everybody thrive the way they want to, but we don't know where to find each other.

[00:45:25] Heather: Right.

I think community is so important and we are so bad as lawyers of even talking about these things.

And there is this huge, there's. It's funny to me when I see people go from convinced it's just them to finally sharing to realizing, oh my gosh, I'm not the only one, to then realizing, wait, not only am I not the only one, but this is a common thing.

[00:45:54] Ariella: Right.

[00:45:55] Heather: And the transition into how that impacts them internally, which then impacts how they show up all in very positive ways, is huge.

[00:46:07] Ariella: It's huge.

It's so huge. I, during COVID I was hosting these virtual check chitchat, check ins, and lawyers would just show up and some would speak, some wouldn't. And every week so many people would keep coming back, but even if they had never spoken before and I would think to myself, is this working? Because they're not talking, but they, they keep, they keep returning.

And, and then I would learn that they're connecting with each other behind the scenes. And I would learn, I would start to notice something changing in their eyes.

And then they would, the next time they came back, they would speak up and share something and everything would just start to change.

[00:46:49] Heather: We need to start speaking more to one another about ourselves, about our issues, when and where we need support.

[00:46:57] Ariella: Yeah.

[00:46:58] Heather: Which leads me into another topic.

It's going to seem like a bit of a pivot, but it's not.

We need to start speaking more about what we really believe to be right versus wrong.

I. I've had several episodes already around.

We have a responsibility as lawyers based it on how we're seen by others how we're revered based on the role that we play within society and just our role as lawyers. I think we have a responsibility and we have a responsibility to hold ourselves to higher standards and to hold others within our community to higher standards. Something I find we are lacking drastically right now, societally in general and within the legal community itself.

I found you because of that piece. I had been, I, I've, I've not been shy in talking about the anti Semitism and how much it bothers me.

There are other things that go along with that societally that I also bother me. But that's one thing in theory specifically that I've talked about in my newsletter a little bit here on the podcast, mostly in my newsletter and on LinkedIn. And that's how we found each other. I think you noticed a post that I had about this.

[00:48:11] Ariella: I did. I loved your post.

[00:48:13] Heather: Well, thank you.

And I feel strongly because I feel like societally I keep hearing in private conversation about how messed up people are, how messed up the world is, our politics, our politicians, just the anti Semitism, other hate going on, how we, other people who aren't exactly like us and we're not 100% comfortable with.

And I think there's a lot of issues right now. But to me, the thing that, the thing that all of us, all of us can play a part and that's a holding ourselves and others to higher standards and part of that speaking up,

[00:48:54] Heather: talking to others about what we see, holding those we care about to higher standards, calling them out, you know, all of these things which, what irritates me the most is you have these private conversations and people agree with you, but you never see him talking about it to anybody other than a very small intimate group of people who they know and trust really well.

Y', all, we're not going to change society if we're not talking about it publicly too.

And you clearly feel the same way about this.

[00:49:25] Ariella: Yeah.

[00:49:27] Heather: So talk to me a little bit about. You've already mentioned chosen. You've already mentioned why you founded it, but talk to me a little bit more about it and about why you've just like screw it. I am just going to speak up, speak out and start doing something, consequences be darned.

Because we're all worried about the so called consequences of people backlash and maybe we get fired or maybe somebody doesn't hire us and maybe, maybe we lose friendships, all these things.

[00:49:54] Ariella: We're not all worried about it. I'm not.

And one of the things that actually gave Me, the confidence to launch my law firm was how vocal I was on LinkedIn.

Because, I mean, all, all of my clients come from client referrals and from LinkedIn. And sometimes it's the people who are actually following me on LinkedIn, and sometimes it's people that are following me, and then they tell somebody else and then they find me. People are looking to hire lawyers who they share their values with. I, I've wondered if one of the things that maybe made it easier for me at the outset, after October 7th to start speaking up specifically on LinkedIn on social, was I'd already spent a couple of years talking on LinkedIn about something that had initially felt so vulnerable, which was my health as a lawyer, because I was like, this could be career suicide. I'm supposed, I'm not supposed to do it, and I've been specifically guided not to do it, but my gut is telling me that I have to. And then I did it. So that felt hard.

Even after the first post, it felt hard. And I would question, you know, I would, I would take more care between writing and hitting submit.

So maybe I was practiced, I'm not sure. But the other thing is when you feel really solid in who you are, which I do, that's all that matters.

I thought about it this way a couple of times.

I'm a really kind, empathetic, really, really sensitive person.

If you called me a, I would laugh because, like, it's just not true.

You might not love me in all situations, and that's fine, but, like, that's just not a thing that I am. So I don't really care if you think it, because it just, like, it's, it's kind of just like a silly thought and it has no impact on me.

And, and that stems from just, like, I know who I am. I know I, I know what I'm about. I know it's important to me.

You're welcome to have, you know, whatever, whatever thoughts you want about me, but, like, I know who I am. And, and similarly, like, I'm a Jew, whether I wanted to do something about it or not. Like, I am. I, I. It's who I am.

I, I wasn't an actively proud Jew before October 7th. It's not that I was actively not proud. I just wasn't really thinking about it, which in and of itself is a, a longer story, which I have my own pain around it, relating to my dad dying when I was so young.

And so for a lot of years in particular, just like, during my adulthood, I, I Didn't really know exactly like where I fit in. Judaism wise. I grew up more observant and like going to services every week and keeping kosher.

And I, you know, I wasn't doing that. It wasn't important to me. A lot of, a lot, most Jews don't do that. And then October 7th happened and I just immediately became a proud Jew. The first couple of days after October 7th, I was a paralyzed mess. And I, it really, I still think about, you know, just being like this paralyzed puddle on like it on my couch in Santa Barbara by the beach, totally safe while we're getting pictures from our family in bomb shelters in Israel, not knowing what's happening.

And here I am across the world, paralyzed puddle. And they're like that, they're actually there. And it, it I couldn't believe that I'd never been to Israel before and a lot of not having traveled was, was healthy related but nonetheless we didn't know what was happening.

And it, I was afraid of what if I never get to go? I, I and as we started to understand what was happening, it, it really pained me to think about, I'll, I won't have that pre October 7th Israel experience. I will never know what it, what it was like before this happened.

The Tuesday after October 7th, I spent hours on the phone with a friend of mine from law school whose cousin was murdered at the Nova Music Festival.

And that turned my resilience mode back on. That turned me from puddle to oh yeah, I'm a resilient person and that's important.

And that's when I started to really be vocal and started to bring lawyers together. And then, you know, what ultimately turned into Chosen, which is now the startup I have with my husband, where the goal is to put everyone from around the world, people who love Jews and love Israel in the same place, to help everybody find who and what they need to thrive personally, professionally and as a community.

And it all started with like this very ad hoc, like I'm just gonna try to take care of, you know, the Jewish lawyer. A lot of the more that happened was or came from the way I was showing up on LinkedIn and the way I was showing up on LinkedIn was immediately after 10-7-I the kind of content that I used to post routinely about lawyer wellbeing and my health history, it changed. I immediately just started posting about what I understood to be going on, you know, in, in Israel, but also in the US and around the world with the unbelievable rise in anti Semitism that stemmed from Jews being Murdered. I mean, when you think about that, it's just completely insane. Jews were murdered and then people started to attack Jews as a result.

[00:55:25] Heather: Oh, I think the anti Semitism was already there.

[00:55:27] Ariella: Oh, there was always. It's not that it hadn't been there.

[00:55:30] Heather: We weren't as aware of it. And this is their moment to come out and be, you know, honest about who they were.

[00:55:37] Ariella: Exactly, exactly. And so I started using my platform differently and a lot and it was primarily to be productive.

Part of it was, you know, I was hosting these events and so I, I wanted to bring people together for them, but it was also I started, I wanted to be part of educating people to actually understand what was going on because I also, you know, we had family and friends on the ground, so we were able to get a little bit more information than most people were able to really get from media. And we all know that, you know, what you, what you read is not generally what's really going on.

And at the same time I was scouring the Internet for where's the one place I can look to understand how to support Israel, how to fight anti Semitism, how to just like help our people. And as I wasn't finding the one place to look, I would, I would post on LinkedIn and at the time on the Wellness Aspire website, each resource that I found so that other people could participate and, and take action and not just be puddles, but like be like, all right, we're going to be advocates, we're going to do things, we're going to educate, we're going to help people, we're going to send money, we're going to send gear, we're going to understand what needs to be done and we're going to do it together. Other and I started pretty quickly getting a lot of messages, really overwhelming, like more messages than I could manage.

And it was messages that came in three categories. It was messages from people who were either they themselves or someone they knew were dealing with anti Semitism and, and really egregious ways. As if there's a non egregious, but there are actually degrees and they didn't know what to do and where to go and how to get help.

And the second category was people who wanted to help and do more but didn't know how to whether it was they wanted to go and volunteer somewhere or they wanted to use their skills or they wanted to donate money, or they just didn't know, but they didn't know where to go to figure it out, how to help either. And the third category was people who were Jews who were feeling filled with despair, so much grief and so much shock, all of about what was going on in Israel and around the world, but also often in their personal lives where they discovered, oh, I actually have no friends because now I've discovered that, like, everyone in my community or my workplace or my, like, you know, fill in the blank circle, they don't thank you circle, they, they don't think that I should have my own country. And they're not okay, in fact, with me being Jewish and I'm now all alone.

And then they'd come across my generally, like, stubbornly optimistic, productive posts and send me messages of gratitude, which I did not understand. I. For the longest time, I would get these messages and I would say to my husband, like, what? I don't. What are they thanking me for? I do not understand. I'm. What it. Like, I genuinely didn't get it. And it wasn't until one person in particular joined a chosen event virtually and explained that she'd actually, she had wanted to join a couple of times, but she'd been nervous because she, she didn't know what to expect and she was feeling so vulnerable. But she'd been following my posts for a really long time and finally joined and, you know, joined an event and explained in that, on that call that it was the thing that made her feel not alone and feel like, oh, okay, maybe we're going to be okay, and maybe there are things that I can do to be part of us being okay.

And so that helps me understand, like, what I was doing and the impact that I was having on people, aside from, like, you know, those first two categories of messages, which was often turning into me triaging and directing to people generally in the US but then increasingly sometimes around the world to help people find who and what they needed.

And a lot of the questions that people would or the messages that people would send me were, were about kind of people. Even like, very, like, openly, clearly, like, visibly Jewish people, you know, either based on what they wore or their names, they sending me messages saying, like, oh, my God, you're so brave.

And I floored because I'm like, your name is, like, even more identifiably Jewish than mine is, or you wear a kipa, or you're wearing, like, you're very clearly Jewish and you're saying, I. I like, what. What are you talking about?

And, and I think this is part of what you're. You're getting at is like, why.

Why are people Talking about things quietly and saying, hey, I know this isn't okay, but then they go out in the world and they're like, ah, I think all of it comes down in one way or another to fear.

[01:00:33] Heather: Oh yeah.

[01:00:34] Ariella: And, but not just like, oh my God, I'm afraid. I think a lot of it is about like, what if they don't like me anymore? What if I lose my job? What if I did? It's fear.

[01:00:43] Heather: It's, it's a primal fear of not being a part of the pack, of survival.

I think it really comes down to that. But yeah, the thing I would say to that, that I finally came to terms with a long time ago is the problem with allowing that to take over is what's the result of never speaking up? What's the result? I mean, is it a pack you even want to be a part of? Well, so this is what, what world is it turning into that you're going to be a part of then? And is that worse?

[01:01:20] Ariella: It is very likely worse. My view is I'm going to speak up because, I mean, just like we were talking about with, you know, law firm clients, more so, you know, in that case we were talking about from sort of a. Well being, mistakes, like.

[01:01:33] Heather: Right.

[01:01:33] Ariella: You know, in general, values aligned. But this is also like, I don't, I don't actually want to be paid by a client that is also maybe, you know, supporting to wipe out my country and murder my people. I don't want them to be my client. I'm, I'm, I'm good.

I don't need them to like me. That's fine. If they hate me, they can go elsewhere.

There have been certainly Jews and non Jews who have spoken out and then they've told me about opportunities that they've lost. It's happening.

[01:02:07] Heather: Oh, I, I've talked to who've lost out.

[01:02:11] Ariella: Yeah. And I have. For myself. I have no idea what I've quote, unquote lost out on. To me, it's not, you know, losing out, but I, I'm not aware of it and I don't care.

I only want business from people who believe that I should be here and that my country should exist.

And I, I can't actually adequately convey to you how grateful I am for your posts about this, your communication in general about it and for us talking about it because there are not, relatively speaking, there are not a lot of non Jews talking about it.

[01:02:51] Heather: I know, I know. You know, I know. And it, it, I finally got to the point where I was like, I have to, because I have a 20 year old and a 16 year old and I do not like the world they're entering into as adults at all. And I don't like where it's going. And I feel strongly that if I can play a role, no matter how small it is, we all need to play our part to make the world better and make it a better place for our children and their children. And it is what it is. And if it cost me listeners, if it cost me newsletter subscribers, if it cost me clients, so be it. I don't care. I can live with myself this way.

And it, you know, at the end of the day, what this really all comes down to is everybody needs to step back and say, okay, what world do I want to live in? What world do I want my children to live in? And who do I actually want to be while I'm here?

[01:03:53] Ariella: And I think, how do I make sure that I'm the person that actually allows that to all be the case?

[01:04:01] Heather: Absolutely.

[01:04:03] Ariella: It's very hard to see the lack of discussion.

And I think that everyone, truly everyone can play some role in improving what's happening. And it doesn't have to, you don't have to become like, oh, now I'm an advocate. Like, no, it can just be having conversations with the people in your quiet circles. Like, it doesn't even have to happen on social media. The fact that, you know, if you're not posting on social media, that doesn't mean that you don't care. And often what's actually more effective is the quiet conversations. Even so I'm in Mexico right now. I ended up making some new friends and we had dinner. I, you know, had known them for about 10 seconds.

This couple, the, the guy clear clearly knew so much more about just Israel's history and the, you know, the Middle east and things of that nature. He was, he was pretty clued in. The, the woman, she was raised Muslim and she was raised in parts of the world where she was raised trained to believe that Jews are evil.

And then she'd grown up and started to learn, oh, that seems to not be true.

And so by the time we spoke, you know, she was certainly neutral.

You know, one of the things that stood out to me just in particular was I, I think I must have made a comment just, just trying to explain, like, Israel as a whole. I made a comment about, you know, it's the only place in the entire Middle east where you can be gay. And she was like, what? But like, you know, it's Religious and like, you. What do you mean you can't. You can't be gay. And I was like, it is like they actually just announced that they're about to have the biggest pride parade, like, ever to celebrate in Tel Aviv. Now, does that mean, like, every single person in the country is, you know, on board with that? No. It's a place filled with all sorts of different people and different views. Fine. But my point about that is just that it was this little detail that she didn't know, and she. That. And that made her feel kind of about it. And I was able to say, well, that's just completely not true, and here's what's actually true. And now she just knows a little bit more. And her. Her boyfriend was also explaining to her all these things that she just had a little bit wrong. And so that one dinner conversation, then she can walk away and just go, I didn't know these things. Now I do.

[01:06:36] Heather: Yeah. I think it's as simple as having the conversations with people, bringing up things, getting. Making sure people are aware.

You don't have to go out and shop from the rooftops. You don't have to put it all over social media, especially if you're not already all over social media. That's not, you know. But everybody can play their part. There is a ripple effect to everything that we do.

Be the person who starts that ripple in a positive way, in the way that you can.

That's what we're asking, and that's what I think is necessary. I hear so many people talking about the world we live in and things are going down. And I know people say that all the time. I do think socially, societally, right now we are in a precarious position, and it's not too late, but we all have to start holding ourselves to higher standards.

Absolutely. Those around us.

[01:07:29] Ariella: I think so much of it comes down to the kind of work that you do with clients on. On just getting really clear on what are your values. Because if you're not clear on your values, it's going to be really easy in a moment of weakness or, you know, just like, of. Of chaos to do something that maybe later you wouldn't be proud of.

If you know exactly who you are and you know exactly what you stand for and you know, what's going to let you sleep well at night and feel good about yourself and how you've lived your life, it becomes so much easier to do what you know, to be right in the moment, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard.

[01:08:08] Heather: I think that's the perfect place to end because we've gone pretty long.

This is going to be longer than my average episode, but it's all good. I think people will really enjoy this. At least I hope so. Before I let you go though, tell people how they can find you and follow you because I think that's really important for them to be able to find you and start following you.

[01:08:28] Ariella: Sure. Thank you. So easiest thing so Ariella Cohen Coleman is the name across various platforms. If you go to ariella cohen coleman.com you will find all of my websites and all of the ways to find me on social and that's probably easier than looking for each individual site and

[01:08:45] Heather: I will put a link to there and probably like your LinkedIn and a couple of others.

[01:08:50] Ariella: Yeah.

[01:08:50] Heather: So that people can find you super easy.

[01:08:53] Ariella: Amazing. Amazing.

[01:08:54] Heather: Thank you so much for this conversation.

I'm super excited. I can't wait. You come out in a couple weeks.

You are my last interview of this season.

[01:09:04] Ariella: Thank you. Thank you.

[01:09:05] Heather: And I'm just really happy that I

[01:09:07] Speaker B: got to have you on this season.

[01:09:09] Ariella: I'm thrilled, I mean thrilled and truly grateful.