In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Margaret Enloe discuss:
- Narrowing down what you want to pursue and what drives you.
- Thinking about change and better habits.
- Stepping out of the weeds of everyday work to look at the bigger picture of your business.
- Getting a mentor and/or coach to grow in life and business.
Key Takeaways:
- Better habits start with becoming more self-aware. As you build better habits, your confidence will grow and, as a lawyer, you need to be able to project that confidence to your clients.
- Time management is a habit that can be learned and can help you to better meet the bigger goals in your business and life.
- Ask for feedback, both good and bad, from those you trust to be honest with you and with the clients that you’ve been working with for a long time.
- Most people get a lot out of helping and lifting others. They are more likely to say yes and give advice when asked than you think.
“Better habits start with becoming more self-aware. What is it that I’m doing? Is that either something I should continue or strengthen? What am I doing that is getting in the way and holding me back?” — Margaret Enloe
Thank you to our Sponsors!
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Episode References:
- Be That Lawyer Episode 285 with Steve Seckler: https://www.fretzin.com/podcast/episodes/steve-seckler-coaching-superstar-lawyers/
- Book: Insight by Tasha Eurich: https://www.amazon.com/Insight-Tasha-Eurich-audiobook/dp/B06XDD9NB6
About Margaret Enloe: Margaret Enloe is a professional certified coach and speaker who works with attorneys and non-legal professionals to increase job satisfaction and resilience, enhance leadership presence, improve business development and communication skills, realize career goals, and facilitate transitions. Margaret brings an extensive career in law with over thirty years working both as an in-house and firm attorney. Margaret has held leadership roles including as a Partner and Associate General Counsel at PricewaterhouseCoopers where she represented the firm on a wide variety of legal matters for over 25 years. Prior to joining PwC, Margaret was a litigation associate at Skadden Arps and had a federal judicial clerkship in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Margaret received her master coaching certification from the Hudson Institute and is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation. Her many years as a partner in a Big Four accounting firm, as a lawyer, a mother, and a cancer survivor help inform the work she does with clients, which they find tremendously valuable. Margaret has three grown children and resides in Manhattan with her husband.
Connect with Margaret Enloe:
Website: https://www.margaretenloe.com/
Email: me@margaretenloe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretenloe/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mmenloe
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/margaret.m.enloe
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MargaretEnloe/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretenloecoach/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Margaret Enloe: Lawyers, just like a lot of professionals, have many, many choices and the variety of choices that we all have can be confusing to try to narrow down what is it that’s important to me? What do I want to pursue, how do I want to pursue that? It can be pretty tough to. Get to an answer on that.
[00:00:26] Narrator: You are listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Freson.
[00:00:48] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody. Welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin, as you know, if you’ve listened to this show for a short while or I think we’re actually coming up on our 300th episode, which is pretty crazy cuz we’ve only been doing this show for about three years. So much content. I mean, oh my God. Think about it.
[00:01:05] Steve Fretzin: We got, I dunno what the math is, I guess. Uh, 300 times 30 minutes is a lot. So you can go back and listen to it from the beginning. You can go back and just handpick cherry pick. Episodes that are on technology, or episodes that are on marketing or on coaching or whatever it is that you have interest in, but we’ve got something for everybody.
[00:01:24] Steve Fretzin: If you’re a lawyer in interested in growth, interested in development, that’s where this show really shines, helping you to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized in a skilled rainmaker. And guess what? No difference. Today. We’ve got Margaret here to really give us some great ideas and tips on how to be your best version.
[00:01:42] Steve Fretzin: You be your best self. Margaret, how are you? Um, great. Uh,
[00:01:45] Margaret Enloe: Steve, nice to be here
[00:01:47] Steve Fretzin: today. Yeah. And we had such a lovely conversation, I think it was, uh, a few weeks ago, and I’m just excited to have you on and for you to be able to share your wisdom. You, uh, gave an interesting quote of the show. I don’t think we’ve ha, I’ve heard this before, but I don’t think it’s been on the show before.
[00:02:01] Steve Fretzin: If it is to be, it is up to me. And I think that is, uh, very, not only poetic, but also very, Very realistic that, you know, things just don’t happen without, you know, people inserting themselves. So first of all, thanks for being on the show and second of all, talk to us about that quote and why you wanted to send that off to me as the quote of the show.
[00:02:22] Margaret Enloe: Oh, sure. It’s a quote, Steve, that my father comes from my father and he was very in an intellectual kind of guy, but, and wanted to achieve quite a few things in his life. And he would say that thing, that quote to me over the years off and on, he didn’t drill it down into me, but he had some big challenges of his own.
[00:02:48] Margaret Enloe: He changed careers when he was early forties. He had two young children that he had to raise, and I think that quote helped him. Think about how he, as you said earlier, needed to insert himself into whatever it is he wanted to accomplish. And he had some pretty big goals that
[00:03:06] Steve Fretzin: he set out for himself. Yeah.
[00:03:08] Steve Fretzin: And I think that’s, that’s something that we all, you know, need to understand and, and is taking ownership of, of what you wanna see change. If you wanna change your local government, if you wanna change, you know, to get out of a private practice and move into your own firm. I’ll find your own. I mean, these are all things that, that people have the ability to do, but it, it is ultimately up to you.
[00:03:28] Steve Fretzin: You know, there’s no, there’s no one else that’s gonna fix it for you, right? I mean, there, there are,
[00:03:32] Margaret Enloe: there are some societal situations where you can say that till the cows come home, and it’s still not going to necessarily work that well. But in the kinds of things that I’m working on with lawyers, these are things that they want to do, and if it’s going to happen, they have
[00:03:49] Steve Fretzin: to make it happen.
[00:03:50] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and you gotta decide what, you know, what’s worthwhile for your time and attention and what’s not. And you know, pushing a rope isn’t necessarily the way to go either. So if, you know, like if I figure out, hey, I wanna, you know, build a 200 million company, but I’m not willing to put in the effort or put in the mental, you know, you know, pressure to do that or, or just, that’s just not gonna be, you know, you know, you make, you make decisions, but it’s your decision ultimately to do or not do.
[00:04:14] Steve Fretzin: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And so, Margaret, You’re the president of moving you forward and, you know, you’re a certified coach. You’re, you know, well thought of in the legal space, in the professional services space, but give us a little background on how you came to be and, and kind of what, you know, kind of transformations you’ve gone through.
[00:04:33] Steve Fretzin: Sure.
[00:04:33] Margaret Enloe: I, I was a partner at Pricewater House Coopers and their legal department handling litigations investigations, and these were. Big items involving a lot of people, a lot of outside council from big firms around the country. As a partner at pwc, we all have to retire. The cutoff date is 60. Some partners retire a bit earlier and PWC decided that it would be a great advantage to the partners, but also indirectly to the firm if they gave some of these up and coming retiring partners, some coaching.
[00:05:09] Margaret Enloe: So I got some coaching along with about 12 other partners. This is again, about a year and a half to two years before I retired, and I found it very valuable and we did it with our spouses or significant others. And it was a direct result of getting that coaching that I was thinking, gee, what might I like to do in my next career?
[00:05:30] Margaret Enloe: And I went through the certification program with the Hudson Institute in California, and now I’m a professional certified coach with the. International Coach Federation and because of my background as a lawyer for over 30 years, many of my clients, about 60%
[00:05:49] Steve Fretzin: of my clients are lawyers. Got it. Got it. And so was there, was that your, be that lawyer tipping point of, of working with a coach and kind of experiencing like what coaching’s all about and saying, Hey, that’s something, cuz that’s kind of what happened to me is I worked with a coach and six months later I was like, how do I do this?
[00:06:06] Steve Fretzin: And he said, well, you pay me a lot more money than you’re paying me now and I’ll show you. And I did. It worked out for everybody. Was that kind of your big moment or was there something else that happened that helped kind of direct you in in where you are today
[00:06:18] Margaret Enloe: in terms, Steve, of where I am today, that was the, that was a event that got me into coaching.
[00:06:28] Margaret Enloe: Yeah. Changed the direction. I could have thought about continuing to be a lawyer and I certainly keep my license, but it was getting that coaching myself and understanding the value that it brought to me and, and a lot of my partners. But it opened up a world that I really didn’t know existed, cuz I hadn’t had any formal coaching before that.
[00:06:51] Margaret Enloe: Yeah. So it was that, I mean, I’ve had other issues in my past, but in terms. That caused me to do so. Something, for example, it caused me to become a lawyer, for example. But in terms of where I am now and how I’m helping people, it was that experience myself of getting coached.
[00:07:09] Steve Fretzin: Right. And so that’s a good lead into my first question, which is like lawyers have all these challenges that they’re facing in their careers and it’s difficult to make change.
[00:07:19] Steve Fretzin: It’s difficult to accomplish goals. What are you kind of seeing that are, are the main like barriers or things that are, that are holding lawyers back that they’re, that they’re dealing with day to day? By and large, it’s
[00:07:33] Margaret Enloe: some anxiety about what the future will hold for them. We’re in a very changing world now.
[00:07:40] Margaret Enloe: It’s so different than when I was an A Skadden. So that’s one thing. Another is that, Lawyers, just like a lot of professionals, have many, many choices and the variety of choices that we all have can be confusing to try to narrow down what is it that’s important to me? What do I want to pursue, how do I want to pursue that?
[00:08:05] Margaret Enloe: It can be pretty tough to get to an answer on that because of the variety and breadth of choices that we have, which the interneting part is what is given those things to us, among other things. And then I think there are more pressures from society because we’re in a, in, in a world where everybody can compare much more easily than before.
[00:08:30] Margaret Enloe: And I don’t wanna put it all off on social media, it’s not, it’s, it’s more than that. But I think, uh, you know, they’ve said, Hey, the upcoming generation has a little bit of harder time thinking about am I gonna be able to do as much as my parents did? So that’s in part the anxiety. And the last thing I’d say is lawyers, like a lot of people, they have habits, they have self-perceptions that are fairly great.
[00:08:52] Margaret Enloe: I went to law school, I’m smart. I should be able to do X, Y, and Z. What is wrong with me? Yeah. And so I think that’s another
[00:09:00] Steve Fretzin: element of that. Yeah, I mean, I think they’re all fundamentally, you know, key to what’s holding people back. And then I would add to that, There’s a, and this might be my business development marketing twist, but you know, hey, so you know, you’re trained to be a lawyer.
[00:09:15] Steve Fretzin: You spend years in the trenches, you know, practicing. Where’s the marketing training, where’s the business development training? Where’s the, uh, you know, the management leadership training? Where’s the coaching? It’s not happening. So, you know, there’s people that are just going through and, and becoming, you know, hopefully great lawyers, cuz that’s so important.
[00:09:34] Steve Fretzin: And then there’s all these other aspects to it that maybe didn’t exist. 20 to 30 years ago that now exist.
[00:09:41] Margaret Enloe: Now exist in a big way. The business of, of lawyering as opposed to Yeah, yeah. Mission lawyering and there’s huge pressures on people to be able to build business or develop business. Yeah. And they don’t have that skill.
[00:09:52] Margaret Enloe: It’s certainly not taught in law school. So
[00:09:54] Steve Fretzin: where do they get it? They get it from me. No, I mean, that’s one place they get it. But I think, I think the problem is in some instances they’re, they’re getting to me too late. You know, someone that, that has, that should have been thinking about it in their.
[00:10:07] Steve Fretzin: Early thirties and mid thirties is coming to me in their mid fifties. And again, they may still have 20 years left in front of him or her, so there’s no better time than now. However, the reality is that, I mean, law school and just, you know, even in law school, they should be thinking about networking and relationships and who’s to my left and my right, and how am I gonna maintain th that’s not happening at all.
[00:10:30] Steve Fretzin: And then on top of that, if they get into a Skadden or they get into a Kirklin or a sidley, You know, they’re just brought into the trenches and just work and keep your head down. And that’s not necessarily setting them up for their future either. Exactly. Yeah. There’s a bunch of barriers that we’re kind of identifying.
[00:10:45] Steve Fretzin: And if, if someone is, let’s say, you know, in their mid thirties and they’re considering their future and, and where they want to go in their career, you know, at the most basic level, how do people start thinking about change? How do people start thinking about better habits and what are those better habits?
[00:11:05] Margaret Enloe: Better habit. Start with really becoming more self-aware. What is it that I’m doing that is either something I should continue or strengthen or what am I doing that is getting in the way and holding me back? So you have a lot of people that are pleasers, a lot of people that say, don’t know how to say no, and therefore they become overwhelmed.
[00:11:27] Margaret Enloe: A lot of people who procrastinate and they don’t get to what they should be getting to. A lot of people who don’t have a lot of self-confidence and yet as a lawyer you have to project to be successful confidence whether you’re really feeling it or not. So those are just some of the issues that I see getting in the way in which I, I come across when I’m working
[00:11:51] Steve Fretzin: with clients.
[00:11:52] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. You know, it’s funny cuz I teach a class every Tuesday morning and have for almost 20 years, and it’s a group of lawyers from around the country that. Are looking to build their business development skills and hone them. And today we talked about time management and just, that’s a, that’s a skill, that’s a learned skill that that helps you develop po.
[00:12:10] Steve Fretzin: Better time management habits. And not saying deer are the headlights, but it was like, these are simple, fundamental things. But most lawyers don’t realize that if you can create positive, Time management habits, how much that opens up for you as it relates to your ability to spend time with your family, get your work done, B, build business, whatever you wanna invest your efforts into.
[00:12:32] Steve Fretzin: And it’s just, that’s just, again, not taught anywhere. I’m teaching it, but not taught anywhere You’re teaching
[00:12:37] Margaret Enloe: it. Yeah. And, and it’s a, it’s a wonderful subject that comes up fairly often. I totally agree with that. And one of the issues is people say, I’m always getting into the weeds, the details. I can’t step back and see the bigger picture.
[00:12:48] Margaret Enloe: And if you are in the thirties, forties, fifties, you need to be able to spend time getting back from the weeds and strategizing about how do I wanna develop, for example, my business? What are the clients that really need to pursue? How much time should I be spending with them? When should I be spending time with them?
[00:13:06] Margaret Enloe: And so the time management that you’re helping clients with your clients with is I
[00:13:10] Steve Fretzin: think very valuable. So, and thank you. But let me ask you this. If, if people are interested in developing positive habits, whether that’s time management, whether that’s confidence, whether that’s, um, just better health, whatever it might be, that’s gonna lead to greater chance of success, what are a couple things that.
[00:13:30] Steve Fretzin: Kind of starting points, let’s, so let’s say you have a client that needs to develop those habits. What would be some things that you would work with with Emma Harran that would lead to better habits?
[00:13:43] Margaret Enloe: Say the first thing, Steve, is just, I mentioned this a bit earlier, raising your level of self-awareness and what is going on without trying to change something.
[00:13:57] Margaret Enloe: As I said earlier, what are some of the things I’m doing that are really great? I want to, I do more of, but what are some of these things that are holding me back? And part of it is just you can make a list and it’s nice to work with a coach or somebody that’s a professional, but you can also get a lot of wonderful information by asking some of your friends or your loved ones, your spouse, if, if you have a spouse, what are some, and, and just asking them a question.
[00:14:25] Margaret Enloe: What do you think I’m doing? Well, you know, you have to make it safe for them to give you honest, objective answers. And that’s a wonderful starting point for, for understanding how other people perceive you. Cuz it’s one thing to know how you perceive yourself. And it’s another to get input from other people.
[00:14:45] Margaret Enloe: So that’s one practical thing I would do is say what, just a conversation with somebody that you really trust and you know is gonna give you honest feedback. And again, you need to make it safer. And that that’d be one place
[00:14:55] Steve Fretzin: I’d serve. Is it safe to turn it around and say, what could I improve? Or is it just about, what do you think I do well?
[00:15:02] Steve Fretzin: Oh, I would definitely ask the second question. Okay. Okay. Just wanna make sure like, I don’t that that’s gonna be a little tougher. Yeah. You know, for some of the snowflakes to handle or some of the people that have thin skin to, to ask and get that feedback because if they don’t like you, you know, you’ve got a big ego and think, no, you know, everything well, someone with a big ego is gonna get pretty upset about that, about that kind of response.
[00:15:23] Steve Fretzin: And
[00:15:23] Margaret Enloe: being, learning how to take feedback is another skill as you rise in the ranks. Being able to ask for it, but also receive it in the way in which it’s meant. Yeah.
[00:15:34] Steve Fretzin: Um, so, so no good, good practice for that is a teenager. Teenager. Yes. Right. If you’re a parent, you have to have pretty thick skin dealing with a teenager around pretty thick skin for that.
[00:15:44] Steve Fretzin: Because they’ll give you, they’ll give you feedback, uh, real fast if they don’t like what you’re saying. Exactly. Exactly. But so I think, I think that’s really important. And, and, and I would even add clients that, um, one way to know that the work you’re doing is super successful and that, uh, might actually lead to introductions that, you know, for more business, but.
[00:16:03] Steve Fretzin: Just talking to the clients that, that you, you know, that you’re working with day to day. You know, what do you like about what I’m doing? What do you like about the work we’re doing out there and what can we, what can we improve as kind of a softer way to maybe say, how can I improve, but what can we improve and get the feedback and, and take it in and say, Hey, this is an opportunity for me to grow and improve, not, this is criticism to me.
[00:16:24] Steve Fretzin: Right. Make it more, more observational than, than a critique. Yeah. I
[00:16:29] Margaret Enloe: think a, a lawyer talking to their current client, That’s a very tough question to ask what you just put out there. Yeah. Magazine token. If the lawyer were able and willing to do that in a very kind of casual way, it can be simple. Like, do me a favor, David.
[00:16:48] Margaret Enloe: How? How is that conversation for you? Did you get from it what you were hoping to get would be useful? And people that have long-term relationships with clients, they assume a lot of things. That maybe they shouldn’t be
[00:17:02] Steve Fretzin: assuming. Yeah. Okay. Let’s take a quick break to talk about how money Penny is changing the game.
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[00:18:11] Steve Fretzin: And I think there’s opportunities for growth and um, one that I put out there on a pretty regular basis is if there’s a lawyer who feels like. He or she is not unique in the space and sometimes just asking client, you know, we’ve been working together for years. You, you’ve mentioned on a number of occasions how much you enjoy the work and, and think, you know, I’m doing great work here.
[00:18:31] Steve Fretzin: Is there anything that you can think of that, that you think separates me from the other lawyers in the other law firms that you’ve had experiences with? And then listen and you never know what you might get, that there’s something that you’re doing or saying or, or, or the work that you’re providing or?
[00:18:45] Steve Fretzin: That might, you know, that you’re highly specialized versus being more general. Whatever it might be that you actually might be able to take in and leverage in your infomercial, in your website, in your LinkedIn, that could be a game changer as it relates to how other people are thinking about you and how you might brand yourself.
[00:19:00] Steve Fretzin: I mean, that’s kind of a off on a tangent, Margaret, a little bit, but I think that’s another piece of feedback that could be really inherently beneficial.
[00:19:07] Margaret Enloe: I totally agree. Totally agree. You know, especially those relationships that are, you feel are going well. Why not ask the question every once in a while?
[00:19:16] Margaret Enloe: What is it that helps? I know you enjoy working with me. What is it that sets that relationship apart? What is it that you particularly enjoy? Just be helpful for me to understand that.
[00:19:27] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. So what, what other things are you seeing with the clients that you’re coaching that is sort of like, you know, here’s another problem that I see and here’s what we work on to help resolve it.
[00:19:37] Steve Fretzin: What? What’s, give us an example. Cause I think that’s really helpful. Someone might actually have that issue or some knows someone or kind of start thinking about what potential, you know, resolutions might look like. It, it’s
[00:19:50] Margaret Enloe: a little hard, a hard question to to answer just cuz the variety of clients is, is large in terms of where they are in life.
[00:19:57] Margaret Enloe: Yeah. But I think people that are attorneys that are. I’m wondering, is this the right profession for me? Is this really giving me the fulfillment that I was hoping and wanting? They’re at a place where they maybe haven’t made a decision about this one way or the other, but they’re, they’re thinking about it and that’s a wonderful time to think about, Hmm, what, what other things excite me?
[00:20:20] Margaret Enloe: What, are there any experiments I might want to do? Any other course. If I have time, I might want to take, uh, a book I might wanna read, but it’s more just being open. If you find yourself wanting to explore, you’re just not sure about something, being open to asking the question and exploring by researching on the internet, perhaps talking to some friends or there’s informational interviews so that you, uh, people can, can undertake just to kind of get more information.
[00:20:53] Margaret Enloe: And I find in my work, Steve, that there are. I get the range of clients who are quite sure they wanna stay in the practice of law. They just wanna get another job. They may don’t, maybe don’t wanna be in private practice. They’d like to work through the government for a change. Something a little more steady of the hours are a little more regular perhaps.
[00:21:12] Margaret Enloe: So then it’s more what, given their skills might be a good fit, whom do they know in the government sphere that might be able to help them understand what a particular job might be like? Yeah. And give
[00:21:24] Steve Fretzin: one trace. I love that last point you made because there are people that are considering making decisions that you know of, of partnering with someone or going out on their own or taking that government job and they haven’t really spent the time exploring and speaking with people in the space, speaking with people who have done it before them.
[00:21:46] Steve Fretzin: Understand how difficult it could be or how easy it could be based on their current situation, their portable book. Their interest level and, you know, is, is working for the government, you know, really gonna be what I think it’s gonna be, or is it gonna be, you know, horrible and now I’ve just, you know, given up something for a job that I’m, you know, that I’m, I, and I can’t see ahead of, ahead of, you know, actually accepting a position, which might be ultimately a bad decision.
[00:22:14] Steve Fretzin: I think speaking to people that are in, you know, if you’re a young personal injury attorney, Do you have two or three mentors, people that have built it before you because they can help you cut back on the timeframe of accelerating your career and getting that first associate, or getting that you know, that that big client or whatever it might be, versus just kind of just figuring it out on your own, which generally speaking, I just know is a bad way to go.
[00:22:39] Steve Fretzin: Figuring out things on your own is overrated. Is overrated. It is. And our attorneys think they can do it because they’re smart people and I, I’m not saying they can’t. It’s just like, how much time does that take? And it’s not a promotion for coaching, it’s a promotion for general advisory and help that is so critical.
[00:22:58] Steve Fretzin: And it’s amazing how many people are willing to help versus, you know, you think, well, they’re not gonna wanna spend their time with me. A lot of people enjoy it. A lot of people enjoy the mentorship. I’m out. Uh, just I mentioned you earlier, I play a sport called platform tennis. Here it’s mainly in the Midwest and in the, in the East Coast.
[00:23:15] Steve Fretzin: And. There are people that I’m on a team with right now for the spring season where they don’t know how to hold a paddle. They don’t know where to stand. They don’t know how to hit the most basic shots, and I love teaching. I love getting out there and, and watching their progress as they learn from me and improve their skills.
[00:23:32] Steve Fretzin: And I’m getting a lot out of it. They don’t realize that. They think I’m just like, I’m just there for them. And that’s kind of the main thing. But the secondary is, yeah, I’m getting a lot out of that en enjoyment of watching them progress and watching them say, just in the last hour, I’ve gotten more than I have in an entire season.
[00:23:48] Steve Fretzin: You know, just playing and doing, making the same mistakes over and over. And that’s, you know, so I think we need to, we need to kind of poke at people maybe a little more than, than we, than we think we could.
[00:23:57] Margaret Enloe: Uh, it’s a very good point, Steve, because a lot of people love to give advice. But they’re just not gonna go out there and give advice if they’re not asked.
[00:24:05] Margaret Enloe: Yeah. But it’s asked in a good way. Most people respond very, very favorably to that, and yet, to your point, you can save a lot of wear and tear if you speak to somebody who’s done what you are thinking of doing
[00:24:17] Steve Fretzin: before you go do it. Yeah. And I think, you know, coaching, you know, we can talk about coaching a little bit and I had Steve Seckler on the show a few, I dunno, a week or two ago, or a few weeks ago.
[00:24:28] Steve Fretzin: And, you know, we got into it. But I think it’s, it’s important for people to know that coaching, it may sound scary, you worked with a coach and saw, I, I think it’s sometimes hard for people to visualize or, or imagine what it could be like working with a coach until they’re in it. Like you got into it.
[00:24:46] Steve Fretzin: After working with a coach, I got into it after working with a coach. But there’s a lot of lawyers out there that are never gonna hire a coach. They’re never gonna like, understand the value. So how do we express that and, and help them understand the benefit of, of partnering with a coach versus going at it alone?
[00:25:04] Margaret Enloe: What I would say is that coaching allows somebody to think through carefully and a little more methodically than they would with a friend. What goals they would like to achieve, what do they want to accomplish? And then think through well in line about what action do I wanna take in order to achieve that?
[00:25:27] Margaret Enloe: That’s what, I can’t just talk about it. A lot of people like to talk, complain, but they don’t like to take action on anything. And then it’s also, it’s, there’s really nothing scary about coaching. It’s thinking through the coach. Well, what are the obstacles that are gonna get in the way of your pursuing that goal, that action step.
[00:25:44] Margaret Enloe: Let’s say you wanna go play platform tennis, but you haven’t done it in 10, 10 months. And you say, well, I don’t, I’m not, I don’t really know where my stuff is, my paddle, where I haven’t seen my paddle in a long time. So getting around the obstacle going and doing it might be, does it make sense to spend 10 minutes looking for that paddle and having it right?
[00:26:00] Margaret Enloe: Yes. So thinking what the obstacles are going to be.
[00:26:06] Steve Fretzin: Jimmy, if you, but if you consider Margaret, I’m sorry, Margaret, I’m sorry. Finish up what you’re saying. Did I finish? I finished, yeah. Okay. I mean, if you consider kind of where you are now and you consider where you really need or want to be, so let’s say I’m an attorney and I’m, I’m doing everyone else’s work.
[00:26:21] Steve Fretzin: I’m, you know, in, I’ve got 10 bosses. Five of them are my partners and five of them the clients that I’m not getting any credit for. But I’m, I’m billing hours, I’m making money, I’m living, living the life. But I know that in reality, control and freedom are. Being at that million dollar level and I’ve gotta get there and I don’t really know how to get there.
[00:26:38] Steve Fretzin: Right? So a, who can you talk to at your firm that’s there, that can help advise you and, and help you through that? Number two is what can you start to read and take in and absorb podcast books, videos that are gonna help you? And ultimately, if you feel like there are other people that have gotten there and they say, well, I hired a coach that helped me, who’s that coach?
[00:26:58] Steve Fretzin: And is it worth investing time, money, and energy? In that coach, in that coaching process to get you there faster than you would on your own, which may never happen, and putting yourself at risk. So I think you kinda have to weigh out the pros and cons and then keep in mind, even then you’re not committing to anything.
[00:27:13] Steve Fretzin: If someone’s meeting with you, Margaret, they probably spend 30 minutes or an hour going through kind of an an introductory meeting with you to kind of see if it’s a fit. Do their problems match up with what you help people? If so, then there’s a decision to be made, yes or no. And with me, it’s the same thing.
[00:27:30] Steve Fretzin: And if people are a no, then let me be your friend and let me help you and, and send you content, or let me send you to another coach or whatever. If somebody is a fit, great, let’s keep talking and moving it forward. But it doesn’t cost anything to explore and evaluate coaching, right? It
[00:27:47] Margaret Enloe: does. It doesn’t cost anything.
[00:27:49] Margaret Enloe: And almost all coaches, I know they have that first conversation or right fit conversation, a chemistry call to see whether they’re good fit with the client client. Thinking about that. I think part of the other issue though, Steve, is many lawyers are so busy and the, the idea of taking on something else, even as one might say, as simple as some coaching, it’s like, yeah, well I don’t have time for that.
[00:28:11] Margaret Enloe: And again, it’s taking off small bites. Is this gonna work? And I talk to a coach, maybe I’ll talk to a couple of them 30 minutes and then you can, you put yourself in a better ion whether spending. An hour every two weeks with somebody could
[00:28:27] Steve Fretzin: really be helpful. Yeah. And the other, the other, you know, maybe it’s a, a mis uh, misperception about it is it’s gonna take time when, for example, in my case, in other people’s cases and maybe working with you, if we’re fixing things, if we’re putting, let’s say for me it’s, you know, putting structure and process and planning around business development, that’s gonna make you more efficient in how you do it and how you move people forward and out.
[00:28:50] Steve Fretzin: And you’re not just winging it and just kind of spinning your wheels. Well, yeah, there’s an investment of time with me, but ultimately, if you end up saving a ton of time, in some cases, maybe two hours a day, I have one client, you know, we found two hours a day that we were able to get, you know, him back, that he’s now able to invest in, in, you know, back into the business and in, in the form of business development or client work or whatever that, that there’s benefits in that capacity.
[00:29:14] Steve Fretzin: And I don’t know that they always see that, uh, as a potential outcome. I’m, I’m sure that’s,
[00:29:20] Margaret Enloe: I’m sure that’s the case and small. I’ve gotta take on one more thing, but the benefits of doing it, and again, you can take it in small steps, so it’s, it doesn’t feel overwhelming. I’ve never had one client say to me, this is overwhelming.
[00:29:32] Margaret Enloe: You know, once they get started, that first conversation, they enjoy it and they don’t find it overwhelming or a
[00:29:39] Steve Fretzin: bad use of their time. Yeah. So really, really good stuff. And I think, again, lots for people to fi think about as it relates to. You know, not just coaching, but just, just, you know, developing good habits and just trying to just be a change agent in their own lives and take responsibility.
[00:29:55] Steve Fretzin: Maybe that’s a good lead into the game changing book for the show, which is a book called Insight, um, that sounds like it would fit right in with what we’re talking about. So what, tell me a little bit about that, about the book Insight. Insight is
[00:30:06] Margaret Enloe: by a woman named Tasha Yuric, and she did a huge amount of research over three years with some other people on.
[00:30:15] Margaret Enloe: Self-awareness. We’ve talked about that a little bit already, but I felt the book, I really enjoyed it. But the book touched on something that is so important and she talked about self, our own personal self-awareness and the outward self-awareness. What do other people think of us? And we talked about that a little bit.
[00:30:36] Margaret Enloe: And it was interesting, the very first part of her book, she talks about George Washington before he was the president, before he had this lofty position that we all know him for. And that story stuck with me because it’s about when he was a colonel, I think it was the uh, Indian Frencher French Indian War.
[00:30:52] Margaret Enloe: And he did some disastrous mistakes leading his troops in Nevada. And you don’t know who this young man is, and then you find out it was George Washington. And that story just stuck with me as a wonderful example. Here’s a young man who was very lack total self-awareness and developed into somebody that we all revere.
[00:31:16] Margaret Enloe: And it’s in part because he was willing to grow and learn and develop. And that’s what we as individuals, whether we’re lawyers or something else. Wanna always continue to be able to do, learn, be open to other people and increase our own develop development. So it’s, uh, it, it was a powerful story. It’s all about George Washington.
[00:31:41] Margaret Enloe: But then she, she took it into a self-awareness and how increasing our own level of self-awareness can be extremely
[00:31:49] Steve Fretzin: ible Yeah. To anything we do. Yeah. Really cool. I love that. I love that the parable of that and how that, how that plays out. Margaret, if people wanna reach out to you, they want to, you know, ask you about coaching, they want to get your advice, they wanna check out your website and that, that kind of stuff.
[00:32:04] Steve Fretzin: What are the best ways for them to reach you? On my email,
[00:32:10] Margaret Enloe: which is me, my initials me margaret enlo.com. My website is margaret enlo.com, and they can reach through the contact page on that as well. And then I, yes, I’m on LinkedIn. I. I, I post fairly off on LinkedIn, various
[00:32:28] Steve Fretzin: things. Yeah, me too, me too. Love the LinkedIn.
[00:32:31] Steve Fretzin: Me too. Yeah. And, uh, then we’ll have that in the show notes as well. So again, if you’re on your phone or, or whenever you’re, wherever you’re listening to this, you’ll, you’ll have that. And, uh, just as we wrap up, I want to thank our sponsors Money, penny Legalese, and Practice Panther for being the best. And appreciate them and, and, and hopefully you heard their, not only commercials earlier, but also their, you know, some of them have some giveaways and some, some good deals for, for you as a, as a be that lawyer listener.
[00:32:57] Steve Fretzin: Margaret, thank you so much for being on the show, sharing your wisdom, and, and I just, you know, what you’re doing in the legal industry is, is very noble and uh, and helpful and important. And so, uh, just thank you so much. You’re very welcome, Steve. Thanks for having me on your show. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:33:13] Steve Fretzin: And, and thank you everybody for spending some time with Margaret and I today. You know, this show, as you guys know, is, is about building good habits, about, about being your best self and really ultimately being that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized in a skilled rainmaker. Hopefully you got some good takeaways from today.
[00:33:28] Steve Fretzin: Um, we’ll talk again soon. Take care, be safe, be well. Bye everybody.
[00:33:36] Narrator: Thanks for listening. To be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice, visit Steve’s website fretzin.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.