The ABA Career Center presents: The Fulfillment Formula

Speaker 1
Before we start today's program, we have some housekeeping items to share. First, this program is being recorded. The recording will be made available on American bar.org forward slash careers within seven business days. Please note that the on-demand webinar recording will only be available to ABA members. Additionally, the audience has joined today's webinar in listen-only mode. You can submit text questions via the Q and A button. Please refrain from submitting questions via the chat window. You may submit your questions at any time during the presentation. We'll collect those and address as many as we can. Thank you for joining us today, and please stand by for the official start of today's webinar. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Career Development Series webinar, The Fulfillment Formula, our 30 minute guide to assessing your legal career. The ABA Career Development Series is a monthly webinar series that contains practical tips on job search and professional development issues for seasoned and newer lawyers alike. The Career Development Series is brought to you by the ABA Career Center. The ABA Career Center offers both career development resources and a job board, where you can upload your resume for employers to search and create job alerts based on your search preferences. All this and more is accessible at ambar.org/careers We are fortunate to be joined by today's speakers, Steve Seckler and Emily Hersinghorn. Thanks to both of you for joining us. The floor is yours.

Stephen Seckler
Thanks so much, Stephen. Thanks so much to the ABA for sponsoring this program and this terrific series. We're going to introduce ourselves in a moment, but just some quick housekeeping before we get started. This is going to be a rapid fire conversation. Emily and I are going to go back and forth from the majority of the program, and our goal is just to give you some things to think about, but this is just a starting point. Career planning obviously involves a lot of trial and error, so, as Steve mentioned, feel free to use the Q and A function, and we'll get to your questions if we can. But both Emily and I are often happy to offer free consults after the program, and we'll share some other resources at the end as well. We recognize that there's a pretty broad mix in the audience here, some of you are in private practice, maybe some of you are in public service, some are possibly corporate roles, and you are all at different career stages. But be assured that what we're sharing with you today applies to all of you. So, the agenda is that we're going to be discussing what are the elements of a satisfying career, a legal career. How to know what's working for you and what isn't working? What adjustments can you make in your career to improve fulfillment, and what resources we recommend to continue your journey? A quick word again about career exploration. This is a process that requires some hard work, self-reflection. This program is just a catalyst to get you thinking, it requires self-awareness through self-assessment. It also requires input from people in your network, or a professional coach, mentor, or advisor. And this process differs greatly from practicing law. It's not linear. It benefits from a non-judgmental mindset and changes that might be available to you that you might want to make. As I said, there's often trial and error to figure out what you really want from your career. You might try something, realize you are on the wrong path, and that is okay. That happened to Emily. It's happened to me several times in my career, and it's happened to many of the lawyers that Emily and I have worked with. That happens to most of us, and don't feel like you have to get it right, or that you're going to get it right from where you are and where you sit right now. So, Emily, why don't you introduce yourself quickly?

Emily Hirsekorn
Sure. Thrilled to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen, for the program overview. I am Emily Hersakhorn, a career leadership coach for lawyers. I have been doing career development work for lawyers for a decade now, and always exploring new paths based on what's going on, market changes, different interests, and I am certified with the International Coaching Federation, also with the Institute for Professor Professional Excellence in Coaching, is a mouthful, but what's really interesting about that is I focus a lot on energy management. What maximizes your energy, so you feel good at the end of the day, and are maximizing your potential and success, and also thinking about how we can minimize what's draining you? Lots of lawyers feeling overwhelmed. I also help a lot with career confidence, clarity on career path, work-life balance, and leadership.

Stephen Seckler
All right, thanks, Emily. And I'm Steve Seckler, as you all know, and I've devoted my entire legal career to helping lawyers to get more from their own careers. So, for the last three decades I've worked in continuing legal education, recruiting, and I now spend 100% of my time coaching lawyers, which I've also done for 25 years on career transitions and marketing, and I also coach lawyers on leadership. So, in the end, after all of my iterations of my career after law school, I did conclude that while I really liked the law and wanted to work with lawyers, I didn't really want to practice law, and so I've done that in a few different guises now. I do a podcast, Counsel to Counsel, which you're all welcome to listen to. I've been interviewed Emily on that, and I write frequently on careers marketing leadership, and I'm an active member of the ABA and the Provisors Business Network, which I'm happy to discuss with anybody. All right, let's jump right in. So, Emily, let's start off with values. We often hear that living our values is important. Can you explain why exactly values are so important in building a satisfying career.

Emily Hirsekorn
Yes, I will say, when I started doing this work, values was one thing that sometimes we touched on. It has become an integral part of my work and my process, just based on the significance and how much meaning my clients have taken from it, so first of all, to clarify, what the heck are we talking about when we say values? Stephen, I had a good conversation about this preparing for this program today. Here's what I say: whatever is most meaningful to you. Okay, so think about what drives you, what gives you a sense of purpose, what lights you up. It can be a variety of things and different characteristics, so what I would actually love for folks to do, and I'll explain to answer the question in just a minute, why you'll see from this quick exercise, I'd love for you to identify up to five core values, those things you really, really care most about rate those down and then rate them in terms of how you're currently living them out, so on a scale from one to 10, one not at all, 10, you're maximizing, you're really living out these values, you're leaning into them, and then we can start to see some gaps, so maybe we really, really care about something, we're living it out a five out of 10. We'd like to improve, call that valued living. It's extremely important for fulfillment. So, why are values so important? I like to think of two main reasons. One, we can enhance fulfillment immediately if we recognize those gaps in valued living, and start coming up with ways to fill the gaps. So, let's say family is a core value. This is very common for lawyers. We're not spending as much time as we would like to, or we're not fully present. That's what people keep saying lately, I want to be more present with my family. We can start thinking about how to do that, and then that can help us with fulfillment immediately, we're not as resentful towards our work, because we're actually spending that quality time with families, that's reason number one, knowing our values, our gaps, and start enhancing fulfillment immediately, number two, making conscious career decisions, so if you are looking for a new role or deciding whether to take on a new leadership position, even when you're staying in the same role. We want you to pull out that list of core values and see how these new opportunities line up. If it aligns with your values, great, go for it. It's going to feel good. If there's misalignment, we want to think about, really think about that. Is it going to detract from what you care most about, love that you asked that about values. I love to kick that off, as you can see. So, now that we've talked about value or Yancey, that's not all that matters. So, tell us some of the other elements of building a satisfying career.

Stephen Seckler
Okay, so actually, before I jump to that, I just want to ask you, I know that I have some tools, resources to help people. So, do you have a list of values that people wanted that could they write to you and get some values to look at, just so that kind of triggers their thinking?

Emily Hirsekorn
Yes, I will provide a resource later in the chat box, but people can also email me, and I'll send you a quick values assessment that you can take. Great question.

Stephen Seckler
Okay, all right. So, there's lots of different ways to sort of think about careers, and there are different models, and I always find that in any modeling, there's always kind of overlap and different ways of sort of dividing things up. So, the first thing I'm going to mention here is going to sound a little bit like it overlaps with what Emily was saying, but I think it's just a slightly different, even though the words are the same. So, an important factor in whether you are getting satisfaction out of your work is whether your work itself has meaning and purpose. Now, that of course has a lot to do with your values, but meaning and purpose is a little bit broader. Values are more about personal principles and standards, like work-life balance, whereas meaning and purpose are about the broader impact and direction of your work. So, if you feel like you're going into work and all you're doing is shuffling paper and has no purpose or meaning that's going to not be a very satisfying job slash career. Meaning can come from a mission, so if you're committed to some kind of a cause, if you're doing some kind of nonprofit or mission driven work, or it doesn't have to be nonprofit, could also be mission driven in the public sector, that gives you a sense of purpose, maybe you really committed to green technology, or maybe you really believe that the world needs, you know, better pharmaceuticals, and you feel like you're adding value by doing the legal work that enables drugs to be developed. So, mission and purpose can also be related to what is your why? Why do you do something? Why do you do the kind of work you do? I know a lawyer who loves probate litigation, which, frankly, I don't think I would like very much. That's, you know, heavily conflicted litigation between siblings, generally. And, but this lawyer grew up in a family that got involved in an ugly fight over an estate that was what her life was like growing up, and now she likes helping other families get through these kinds of disputes with less conflict, so that's that gives her me purpose. I know a lawyer who does a lot of work for the cannabis industry, and growing up he had an older brother who died of cancer, but some got some relief from campus when it wasn't the legal substance, so he feels very committed to helping companies like that. Meaning can also come from being interested in an industry, like I already mentioned, biopharma technology, for example, and sometimes it can come from the just the desire to be an expert at something, like some people really get enjoyment out of being the expert on the Internal Revenue Code, or some lawyers get great pleasure being a great trial lawyer. It's very personal. Okay, so another element in career satisfaction is having the opportunity to exercise your strengths. We all have innate strengths and weaknesses, and while we can improve in some of these areas, if we are in a role that inherently plays on our weaknesses, unless it's really possible for us to strengthen those weaknesses, we're not going to be happy unless there is a real opportunity to grow into it. So, like, for me, for example, I decided actually not to practice law, and I did fine in law school, but I don't do well with reading volumes and volumes of material that just isn't a good fit for my personality, so that I've chosen a career that doesn't require me to spend hours and hours reading through volumes of statutes and case law or documents or contracts. Another factor is whether the job plays to your communication preferences. So, are you an introvert, and you're spending all of your days in meetings, which is very draining, or maybe you're an extrovert that's being forced to sit in front of a computer all day long and not getting a chance to interact with people. Are you a big picture person who hates being mired in detail? Do you like to make objective and logical decisions, or do you prefer making subjective and values-based decisions? Do you prefer a lot of structure to your day, or do you prefer a more flexible work environment?

Stephen Seckler
Another factor is making use of skills that you have that you enjoy using, so you might be good at something. I'm pretty good at math, actually. I'm a fatherless math professor. I do not like spending my time on calculations, you know. I'm not very happy doing my taxes. In fact, I haven't done them in years. I just turn it over to an accountant because I hate dealing with numbers, and I really hate the bookkeeping part of being in business for myself, social connection is actually a very important part of career satisfaction. You have ongoing and authentic relationships with the people you work with. Do they share your values? You feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself. How are you being treated? You feel respected by your colleagues or your supervisors? Are they committed to your success and your professional development. What's the environment in your workplace? So that's actually the number one reason that people leave their jobs. I was in recruiting for many years, and I always knew I was on to something if I called an associate who had just had a very bad conversation with a partner who just chewed them out. That's what makes people want to leave jobs, and we're not going to suggest that the moment you're unhappy with the environment you're in, that you should leave your job, but that is something that is very, very important to career satisfaction. Some of this is related to the health of the firm or the company, so if you're working in a stressful environment because the firm or the company isn't doing well or is not well run, then maybe it's time to start looking around. Compensation can be a reflection of how you're being treated, and the measure there is not objectively how much you're being paid, but it's how much are you being compensated relative to others in similar roles, either in your company or firm, or or outside of your company or firm. And then finally, the last element of career satisfaction is actually the least important, and it's the subject matter, so you know if you like sports and you want to be working with with professional athletes or baseball teams, you know, maybe that would make you happy, but if all those other things are not in place, you're not going to be happy, okay, so that's a very quick, fast-paced overview, which we just screened through, that can take a lot more effort to kind of get through it, but that gives you a high level. So, Emily, how do you know what is working for you?

Emily Hirsekorn
Yes, so I just want to say it was quick, however, it was thorough. I mean, this is really good stuff, folks. So, I hope that people are really paying attention, taking some notes. I love this question. Now, How do we know what's going on? And that's what I'm going to talk about here in a minute, but I just want to say we have to ask this question, because unfortunately, a lot of folks have their heads down and are not paying attention, and they're just trying to get through the day. Right, people say, "I'm on the hamster wheel, I wake up, I do the same damn thing, and I power through right day in and day out. You've got to be pausing and taking a little bit of time on a regular basis to do some self-assessment, very, very important. A lot of what Steve was talking about is not fresh in our consciousness. We are not thinking about it day in and day out. So I really encourage you to identify some sort of time. I'll tell you two common times my clients like to choose one on Monday or Friday, so Monday, beginning of the week, start fresh, or maybe even someone who works on Sundays a little bit on Sunday, and then other folks who are like, I'm done, I don't want to work on Friday. Okay, great. Now's the time to sit there and plan and map things out and think about what's going on. So, just to be clear, we're thinking about all the things that Steve just went through. Okay, what's working for you and what's draining you and what's not? So, I encourage you to track this on a weekly basis, even better if you can do it on a daily basis, but at least each week, and I always say it's a basic self-assessment questions. What's working? We want to make note of that. We tend to go to the problems, right? We train, we are trained to identify problems, identify what's working. We want to maximize that, maintain it, lean into it. And then also, what could be better? Okay. So, oh, there's birthday balloons. There we go. Sorry, I forget. I forget them doing this for some reason. Breathe out the birthday balloons, and I leave it because it always makes people smile. Okay, so regular self-assessment. We want to get that going. Designate some time. I'd love for you to write this down right now. Do it in your phone and your calendar. When next week, are you going to sit down and do a quick inventory? What's working, what's not? Steve went through a lot of great stuff. I just want to summarize two different factors to consider. Who you are with, so social factors like you mentioned, the environment, even thinking about lighting, is there an annoying buzz in your office that's making it hard to work? Is it freezing? You need to talk to someone about the temperature, so many different environmental factors, the weather that could be throwing this off. And with respect to your job, specifically, of course, the office location, whether you're remote, etc. Physical, how are you feeling? Are you taking care of yourself? For most of us, we usually could be doing better in that arena. So, are there small changes that you can be making now, or does it feel like this job is so demanding that it's impossible to do the things that you want to do? So, just to give you a few quick examples. Okay, this regular self-inventory, so valuable. The other idea here is getting input from others. We were literally just talking about this before we got onto this call, which I think is so wonderful. Steve was saying he's great about it. I think I could be better about it, but it's so valuable to get input from others. I have a wonderful 360 assessment that we could do, but you're getting input from a variety of folks in your life and in your office. So, interesting, because self-awareness has its limits.

Emily Hirsekorn
There are certain things that we just don't see sometimes, so what I see come up from folks is one of two things: one, areas where we could grow, but we're not necessarily aware of, and on the other hand, a lot of folks I support have some serious self-doubt that's actually unwarranted, because everyone else thinks they're doing great, maybe they're worried about their approach, and their team thinks they're inspiring, and they show up with a ton of energy. Okay, good. Then we can do some work on that self-doubt, but really interesting to get input from others as well. All right, Steve, at this point, what are some things that you should be doing if you're feeling unfulfilled and thinking about making a move.

Stephen Seckler
All right, well, you said the first thing that was most important, which is starting to do some assessment, either on your own through some of the resources that we're going to share with you, or getting together with colleagues that might be able to give you some input or working with a professional like Emily, or I.. there's an interesting question in the, in the chat about somebody who has spent 20 years doing work in a toxic environment when in house and is actually miserable, even salary is fantastic, and says I've yet to find a spot that aligns with my means, values, and it's meaningful, first purposeful. Any advice? Okay, give us a few hours, and we'll answer that one. That's, that's, that's all. There's a lot there, but it's a good question, and it's a good thing to be thinking about. The fact that you're thinking about it is great. So, being curious, so again, when you're in the practice of law, you know what you're trying to do, you're trying to get a contract signed, you're trying to resolve a case, you're trying to help a company comply with regulations, you're trying to get an estate plan drafted. This is a very different process. Being curious is what's most important. Start a list about things that make you curious when you're in a company. One of the benefits of being in a company, other than being in a law firm, although you could do this in a law firm too, is you can start talking to other people in the company and find out if there are other things that people are doing that might be interesting that you might be able to transition into, so using the people that are around you to get input and generate ideas is one thing that you could do. Doing pro bono or volunteer work can also give you exposure to things that you haven't already had exposure to. Another thing that you could do is start a side hustle. So one of the general principles that I adhere to in terms of career planning is it's probably better to keep your day job in the short run, even if you're even if you're miserable, unless it's really, really adversely impacting your health, because it's a lot easier to find a job when you have a job, and it gives you more to talk about when you're out there networking and getting input from other people, and again, sometimes just by being in a firm, in a company, in an environment where there are other things going on, maybe you can make some kind of a transition. So I once counseled an environmental lawyer at a large firm who wanted to make a move into corporate, and he was looking outside of the firm, and I said, "Why don't you just make the transition within your firm? You know, at that time, as many years ago, corporate was very busy, and he was really valued in environmental, but they let him move, and eventually he actually moved on, and it was a great opportunity for him to get retooled, but he didn't have to leave his firm, even if you're working with people that you don't like, even if you're in a bad work environment, there are ways to sort of test the waters, figure out if there are other things that you want to do, do some experiments, get input, and you know if you can sort of suffer through it a little bit, you're probably better off staying, but something else I wanted to say that I'm forgetting. All right, I'll pass it back to Emily to talk about, you know, if you're actually this very question that I was just leading up to, which is, if you're already very busy at work, I guess I kind of answered it myself. Should you, you know, should..

Emily Hirsekorn
well, that's okay. I can add a couple of things. I also do want to go back to this question that was asked in the Q&A. Just, just to say really quickly, I do highly encourage you, and I'm sure there are other folks in this situation, I do highly encourage you to consider all of the things that we are talking about today, because there are so many different factors at play for each individual, and, like Steve just mentioned, there are usually, I think, most of us coaches find with a lot of our clients, there are usually some things that we can personally be doing that can make a difference in our experience day in and day out, in addition to considering other opportunities. So I did just want to encourage you, do those self assessments, really consider all the different factors that are impacting how you're feeling about your work, and then consulting a peer, a mentor, a coach, etc. for additional deeper support, so to go off of what Steve was just talking about. How it is ideal to stay before just quitting, which is, of course, easier, and a lot of times we do have this escapist fantasy. I think, like, oh, if I get to believe and go do something else, it will be better sometimes. It is, but we want to make sure that you're really spending time to make that decision consciously. You're thinking about why you're leaving, you're doing everything you can to improve your current situation. I tend to find a lot of folks are not having conversations that they could have, they're not setting boundaries that they could have in their current role that could be helpful, so they're not so mad that they had to miss their kids' soccer game or can't take vacation, etc. Communication is really, really critical and can make a huge difference. So, those are just a couple of quick examples with what we mean by seeing if there's changes you can make doing things differently where you're currently at before taking off, but I also wanted to say quickly, we know it can be like a part-time job looking for another job, so it can feel tough to do both at the same time. Accountability is everything, so if you are exploring other opportunities, and I always encourage folks to do so, if they're not happy where they're at. Really think about how you're going to get that done. Commit to a certain amount of time each week, even better, have it scheduled, maybe some regular time where you're working on that exploration, job search, and then also thinking about who can support you as an accountability partner. Coaches, of course, that's what we do, but other folks too, whether it is some sort of industry peer or even a family member who can help make sure that you're getting that done. It can feel like extra work that doesn't have to be done, but if it is important to you, we want to make sure that you're making that move as smooth and fast as possible,

Stephen Seckler
and Emily, if I could add, you know, you don't have to do it all at once, and even if you only have a little bit of time, you know, if you're trying to, if you're trying to, if you're trying to get in shape, like you don't have to run the marathon, you can start walking around the block, if you could walk around the block once a day, that's much better than just sitting idle, okay? So, if you can just pick away at this and recognize, and I tell this to my clients all the time, this may take a while, and that's okay, you'll get through it. You know, I know you're unhappy, the person you work for is a jerk. I say that as somebody who has pretty much only worked for jerks, and that's why I work for myself now. But basically, you can get something done by peeking away at it a little bit at a time. So, in order to pick away at it a little bit at a time, we'd like to offer you some resources that we'll put in the chat. And also, I will just say once again, both Emily and I do a lot of free consults, and Emily has an assessment she can give you. I have an assessment I can give you, and you are welcome to book an appointment with either of us. And we're happy to kind of hear your specific situation. Everybody's situation is unique. You don't have to be miserable. You may have to be miserable for a little while longer. You may have commitments, like you're a parent or you're supporting somebody, and may not be realistic to just go off to Belize and surf, but maybe eventually you'll be able to, if that's really what's most important to you. So, you know, keep the keep up your spirits. We've both worked with many people who've been unhappy and found happiness at the end, but you don't have to get it all done at once, so you've seen in the chat now the Baya career strength assessment. Oh, and then I didn't do that right, I didn't send it to everybody, so I've got two books that I'm recommending to. oh, wait, okay, Steve, just sent it to everybody. Okay, great. So those are just some resources to help you start off. I write a lot, and I have a podcast also. So check out my website. I think Emily has resources also on her website. And good luck to you. Thanks to the thanks to the ABA, Emily from the Career Center for inviting us.

Emily Hirsekorn
Thank you, everyone, for coming.

Speaker 2
Thanks to Stephen, Emily, for sharing today's presentation. And thanks to all of you for attending. We encourage anyone with questions or who would like to continue the conversation to reach out to today's faculty by email. Steve Seckler can be reached at steve@seckler.com and Emily can be reached at Emily at Hurstcorn coaching.com You'll find that information on the screen, as well as in the chat. The next program in this series will be august 8. Join us for Navigating the Legal Workspace: Challenges and Strategies in the hybrid era. Registration is open now for updates and more. Check out our website or connect with the ABA on social media. Lastly, get to know more about who helps make these programs possible by checking out our career center board on our leadership page. Thanks again to all of you for attending, and we hope you have a great day.

Unknown Speaker
Bye.

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