Episode 261 Sometimes the Solution is to Slow Down
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Davina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:Davina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's Devina.
Davina:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick, attorney, former law firm owner, and law firm growth strategist. You'd think by now, after being an attorney and business owner for almost 2 decades, I would know what I'm about to share with you today. But the thing I know about life as an entrepreneur and business owner is there are always lessons to be learned no matter how long we do this. As Abraham Hicks says, you will never get it done and you can never get it wrong.
Davina:Why? Because as human beings, we are always receiving new information and transforming how we think and behave based on that information. And, yes, even those of us you wouldn't think are changing are always changing. From the time I started school through present day, and believe me, that's been a long time, I've been an achiever. It's probably because my parents, especially my mother, expected nothing less of her 3 daughters than straight a's in school.
Davina:We were expected to do well academically, not so much in sports, but that's a discussion for another day. Both my sisters were valedictorians of their high school class. Both went on to earn college degrees. 2 of us hold graduate degrees. That working hard for straight a's thing turned into working hard in the workforce to earn promotions and raises and build a good career.
Davina:That all worked okay for me until it didn't. I never seem to be able to get really great raises or promotions no matter how hard I worked until I stopped being a worker for others and started my first business, which was a law firm as it happens. In fact, I went to law school specifically to start my own law firm business when I graduated. Since then, I've grown not 1, but 2 law firms. I've started a coaching and consulting business.
Davina:I've written 2 books. I started this podcast, which is now about 5 years old, and I've helped hundreds of women lawyers start and scale law firm businesses, mostly through private coaching in the first several years. Then in 2020, I also created a membership program designed exclusively for women law firm owners who are in the earlier stages of building their law firms. Those who are climbing the 6 figure revenue ladder and who may not be close to that $1,000,000 yet and wanna build a strong foundation. So I'd love to tell you all of these achievements were easy.
Davina:But if I did, I would be lying to you. Since I started this journey, I want you to know that I've invested thousands of hours in continuing education, in putting in the work, in training, in coaching, and also, all told, probably multiple 6 figures invested with coaching, training, education, and, marketing. While I love my career, it has not come without sacrifice. And there have been many of times that I have worked all week and through the weekends for weeks on end because I wanted to create something new and special and different for my community and bring that to market. Between my personality, my gen x upbringing, and my professional training, I tend to be quite the driver.
Davina:In other words, by nature, I will push myself and even longer to learn how to lead a team to get the results that I wanted. In all the years I've been coaching high achieving women, I've discovered I'm definitely not alone in this. High achievers do not let anyone stop them from achieving their goals and dreams, And it's both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because we get to live out a lot of our dreams. It's a curse because constantly pushing to achieve can can lead to burnout and exhaustion and quite frankly, health issues.
Davina:Learning to lead a team to accomplish big goals is the real secret of success for those who appear to have it all. Trust me that those who have it all or have most all are not doing it all. At the moment, my team and I have been working on a project we've been very excited about. It is complex. It requires quite getting a lot of the details right.
Davina:It also requires a lot of collaboration and coordination, and it requires patience, particularly on my part as the visionary of this project and the team leader. Patience, as anyone who knows me well will tell you, is not my strongest gift, but I'm discovering that it is a gift that I'm leaning more into developing. Recently, in a conversation with a colleague, I had a light bulb moment that was what was needed at this point in our project was not for me to push, push, push, push, but for me to slow down, to really reflect, and be open to receiving solutions and answers. So not for the first time, pushing up against a self imposed deadline really felt exhausting to me, and it just wasn't working. But this time, instead of plowing through as I usually do, I made a different choice.
Davina:I decided to take my foot off the gas and just coast for a while to reach out to others for input and conversation and to be okay if deadlines passed and we hadn't achieved our mark. I decided just to enjoy the process, which I really do when I'm not pushing so hard, and including the obstacles to enjoy the process, obstacles at all. And I'm thrilled to get to to do the work that I do. I love the impact that we have made on the world already, and I'm excited for the future of our business. I'm also okay with slowing down a bit, taking a little break, and allowing time for the universe to provide all that I've been asking for.
Davina:If we always have to be the ones with the answer, we might find that we don't always wind up with the best solutions, and that's kind of where I am at this moment. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I know it's a short one, but I'll be back next week with more content created exclusively for women law firm owners like you. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful week and maybe you, like me, will let yourself off the hook a little bit if you've been pushing really hard and just enjoy the magical life that you are creating and the wonderful law firm firm business you're creating.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at Wealthy womanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.
