EP 809- Define Success

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life. Featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Erica Slater:

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. This is Erica Slater, and today I am joined by Amy Gunn, Mary Simon and Elizabeth McNulty. Hey ladies. Hello. So today we’re going to talk about something I’ve been thinking about when I force myself to every, I don’t know, two or three years is how you define individual or personal success. And I want to hear from everybody about what that looks like for you now, but also maybe how it’s changed throughout your life. I mean, we all maybe have seen a little ribbon that says, I dress myself today and now I’m back to that point in first grade and today in my life, if I dress myself today, I’m in good shape. No, I’m kidding. I haven’t reverted that far, but I’m close

Amy Gunn:

Anyway.

Erica Slater:

So especially when it comes to career paths, when I look back at many of us that went to law school or a professional school, although it’s a rite of passage, I think that most of us were okay with doing more school. We were probably successful students. We probably, especially if talking about law school and litigators thrived in a merit based system where we could study hard, ace a test, get a report card that says you did it in law school, you even get ranked. So for all of us type a high achievers who love that report card, once you get out and practice, that’s not necessarily how you can judge your success. So I think that throughout school at least, I can always say that I was looking at a report card, I put a badge on my back of what my standardized test score was for that level or whatever it was, and that gets you so far. If that’s your thing, then that’s how you’re valuing your effort and time. And then when you get out into the real world, I think the obvious idea becomes what’s your salary? How much money are you making? Is the amount of money you’re making equal to your feeling or impression of success? So I have a feeling that some of you’re going to challenge those long-term notions. I know that that’s always vacillated for me, whether that’s the mark of success. But Amy, what do you think?

Amy Gunn:

I want to believe that my idea of my personal success has changed over the years. I would say in school it is easily, as you mentioned, it’s sort of easily defined. Did you do well on that test? Where are you in the rank? Are you in the top percentage? How’d you do on your lsat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because it’s created externally and you’re in control of how well or how much you study. But ultimately someone is telling you that you’re at the top of the class or middle of the class that you got this job offer or this other job offer or no job offers getting a job. But then now we’re all here. And as trial lawyers, I think it’s easy to revert to successes, winning trials. I think that the longer we do this, and as long as I’ve done that, what I’ve learned thankfully is that you can lose cases and still be successful.

So it’s definitely an evolution of what it means to be successful. And I have not been shy. I don’t think that for whatever reason, whether it’s for how I grew up or just how I look at the world, money is success. In my personal world, money is success and I’m not always proud of that, but it is a very compelling thing for me. But then you get to a point in your career where you’ve made money and then you have to ask yourself, how much is enough? And that’s a tough answer. That is a really tough answer. And it changes every day and it changes based on who you’re hanging out with and who around you is making money and are they making more money? And it’s not terribly healthy. I’ll be the first one to admit. And I think you have to have your own personal idea of what if we’re only talking about money, what does success look like in terms of how much I’m making?

And if you spend too much time worrying about what other people are making that drives you a little crazy. So I’ve tried to really just be happy in my world, what am I doing and what am I making? And then it becomes how much is enough? And that begs the question of what is more important than money? And I’ll tell you, I don’t know if it’s just because getting tired done this for a long time, but it is or have had success as defined by earning money. And I would hope that after almost 28 years that you would have made some money. I mean, hopefully if you work hard every day, you’re going to make money. So now my definition of success is in flux. I’ll tell you today, I don’t know what does it mean for Amy Gunn to be successful? So what I’ve sort of developed in something that I can control and what I can control is working hard every day. I mean, not necessarily something everyone’s going to see every day, but success as I’m just sort of opening this door and thinking about this as we sit here is staying at it, getting up every day and fighting the fight and hopefully continuing to be successful in terms of winning cases, helping people and making money while you’re doing it. I think the older I get, success means

Mary Simon:

Freedom

Amy Gunn:

And being able and autonomy and not being indebted to, if I walked out the door today and never came back to this firm or to the law, I think my reputation would have been as a good successful attorney and I can live with that. I don’t know when my mind kind of flipped. When did I actually start feeling that way? I don’t think it was external. I think it was internal. I think you’d get to the point where you just have to believe that you’ve done a good job and continue to do a good job, consider yourself successful and what other people think of as success, you have to know that it might be different than your definition. And it goes back to not really caring that much what other people think.

Mary Simon:

Yeah, and I even think Amy, what’s funny is that I wrote down even before you started talking about it, is that success has internal and external components. And I kind of heard you talk about both of those, but in a way, I think there are both internal because you have a value system for yourself of leaving. If you said, if I left today or I’d be thought of as, or your own legacy in your legal community would be, that’s almost like not every person would even care to have anybody be thinking about them in a good light. And so that’s almost like an internal value system of actually wanting to be a person that others appreciated being around and being a person that everyone wanted to spend time with. And I think that it’s almost like a reflection of your own value system. But I appreciate the external component of winning a case, getting a big verdict.

That also in my head is success. And it’s just a different, it elicits a different, maybe a little bit overlap, but a little bit different set of values that are more, I want to be successful in my career. I want to get good results for my clients. And that’s also successful to get an outcome. It’s so funny because in thinking about this, I think about the things like verdicts and good case outcomes. And then I also think about just this last week I was asked to speak on a panel at my high school for their career day. And the women from my class who were invited to career day way smarter than me way, I’m talking like Mary, I know, but I promise you they are incredible women from my class. And they were all on the stage at graduation, top of our high school class.

And I was invited to be on the panel from my class. And to me, that is success to me because I foster those relationships with the people who I went back to talk to. There wasn’t a single person who was in my class who was there that I didn’t immediately go up and give a hug to. And I haven’t spoken to them in however long. And we were just able to pick up and have a wonderful conversation. And I think that that is success to me because it’s kind of along the same line that you were talking about of I know that I was someone to be a friend to people in my class. And that was so important to me then. And it’s important to me now. And it’s a, it’s, I went home and immediately told my husband, I cannot believe they invited me to be with the other women who I was with, that they are brilliant.

And I was like, okay, but you’re a really successful lawyer yourself. And I was like, I’m not saying I’m not, I understand it’s a different, I was like, I’m not trying to say it to put myself down. I genuinely am inspired by the women that I was allowed to sit next to, invited to. And that to me is a measure of success that had nothing to do with my grades. I just know it. I wouldn’t be there if it was only a top percentage of people who were invited back. So that to me feels successful. It also is, I feel most successful when I’m laying on the couch with my dog, my daughter and my husband in a house that we have for our own, when I feel like we have a safe place to call home. I feel so much success when there’s someone who wants to come to my house because that feels like a safe place for them to feel like they’re at home.

And I think that’s a reflection of me being invited to those spaces growing up or going and trusting other people when I feel that that same when someone else feels like they can come to me or come over to my house or share a meal with me or something, or they want to do that, I see that as success because I’m fostering the same relationships that I so valued as I’ve grown up. And even still today, I still have that as such a feeling of success and it’s more of the internal feel. And I also think kind of an overarching piece to this is I think we’ve had a conversation before, what does contentment mean? And being able to just sit with who you are and feeling good about it, that is success. And there are so many times when you said keep at it, I’m like, when you don’t and you’ve had kind of a frumpy week or a frumpy month, or you just feel not really taking care of yourself in the way that you want to, don’t feel good when you’re just sitting down with yourself.

But when you’re doing those things, you feel that. So I almost feel like it’s a culmination of external success, but it’s a lot of reflected of an internal value system. And I’d imagine that everyone thinks about success differently. And same with the listeners. Everyone probably has their own take on it. And I think mine’s a reflection of people who I’ve seen in my life experience what I think of as success and then having similar moments at any point in my life and be like, oh, I did it. Whatever those little moments are. But I, it’s such a fascinating exercise to think about success because it can just go so many different ways. Elizabeth,

Elizabeth McNulty:

This is such a loaded question. I teed it up and didn’t answer it myself,

Mary Simon:

If you noticed. We’re getting there. Yeah, I only teased it.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah. What did success used to look like for me? Well, I feel like probably is same as everyone in the room. I’ve always been a really ambitious person for as long as I can remember. But I distinctly remember being asked this question probably in grade school, what would success for you? Or maybe it was like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I just remember thinking, I want to be happy, but to me that’s always been being successful would lead to that. And what kind of job would that be? And I think my answer today is sort of the same thing. Being happy would equal success for me. And obviously that evolves. What makes you happy? Being successful is part of that. I’m still at that point in my career where getting through the day is a success day to day. This is a hard job. My word for the year is persist, just get through the year.

But I think a successful thing for me is just I’m really proud of, I do all of this on my own and that’s how I feel successful. I got to this place, not without the help of others, but I’m still just doing all this on my own and kind of like you, Mary, providing a home for myself. And I think that Youngme would be very impressed by that. And that’s always something that’s in the back of my mind. Just would grade school may be really, I dunno, proud of who I am. And I think that that is kind of how I would measure success. What I would think of my life, 10-year-old me, what would she think? I think that that’s kind of where I look at success. But professionally here, I think in this place, it’s interesting. I didn’t know what kind of lawyer I wanted to be, so I kind of thought that in most professional jobs there’d be promotions and things like that and that’s what you would look to.

And it would be like school traditionally, here’s the next step. And that’s not really what our workplace is like. And really the only thing for results is cases and money. And that’s kind of where we said those benchmarks. And I think that’s harder when you’re younger because you have to be a little bit more patient, the money will come, but it’s harder to see where you are with things. So I dunno, it’s harder to see the success I think, but sometimes, at least for me, it’s like, well, just getting here is a success in itself. I don’t know. I told someone where I worked a few weeks ago at some bar event and he said, congratulations. And I was like, thank you. Okay. I don’t know if you’re being serious or not, it was kind of weird, but yes,

Erica Slater:

They are. Thank

Elizabeth McNulty:

You. So that was flattering, but it’s a challenge I think not having that traditional, there’s no promotions, things like that. I think your friends or partner track things like that to show what success would mean a marker of some sort. And it’s just, I think that’s where you have to just internally if you feel it, which I honestly don’t have a problem with, but I think it’s sometimes those external, the outside forces, if you let that get to you, can be a little bit of a challenge. But just being confident in your own results and feeling that kind of success is how you measure it. But I think setting those goals for yourself and having check-ins on how you feel successful is something that would probably make it easier and maybe a way to set those benchmarks for yourself. Air Erica, your turn.

Erica Slater:

So just like you guys have mentioned, I think you can talk about this concept and talk it out forever because it’s so rooted in analyzing what’s that benchmark? Okay, I’ve met it. What’s the new benchmark? How does that change? So lemme give you an example. And this is so silly little girl stuff. So my parents are divorced, both remarried, and my dad married my stepmom when she was 39, which is about the age I am. And it’s been funny, we’ve been laughing. I compare my 39-year-old self who still, I can say, sure, I’ve come so far, but I still don’t feel like I’ve arrived anywhere or I’m finished learning and it just personalizes your parents. And I’m like, so you were pretty young when you and dad got married. And she’s like, yeah, do you get it now? I’m like, yeah, I do. I still feel very young. You know what I mean? And I like that feeling. I hope I never lose it. I hope I’m sitting here 55, 60, 65 and still feeling young. I have a lot ahead of me and not that I’m looking back on things only. I

Speaker 6:

Appreciate you started at 55.

Erica Slater:

You’re welcome.

So anyway, but I remember, and by the time she met my dad, both of them had established careers. They were both professionals. She still has the same career that she had and she’s been very successful at it kind of pushed, I’ve seen her pushed through kind of promotions and she is in a COO position of a large company and she doesn’t have a college degree. So I’ve seen her push from an x-ray tech to leading a radiology company and she is that core three or four people who lead that company. And so an X-ray tech doesn’t go to school and say, I’m planning to make a ton of money, but I’ve seen her be very financially successful and I’ve seen her kind of loosen up her spending a little bit. And when I was little, we would go places and I’d be like, when I get older, I’m going to buy Lancome Cosmetics and shop at Whole Foods.

Speaker 6:

You’ve

Erica Slater:

Made it. That’s it. That’s it. So today I buy Kiehl’s and I only shop at Whole Foods when I need really nice ingredients,

But it’s so silly. It’s such a silly thing for me to remember. I always told her that growing up, we’d do shopping on the weekends or something and I’d be like, that’s it. That’s the market. Fancy. Yes. When you’ve arrived, when you can buy fancy skincare and shop at the fancy grocery store, you’re secure enough that you can go crazy. And then I’ve reached some financial security. I think the good thing is that it’s all relative, right? But I grew up in a solidly middle class family. I don’t need to own a private jet to hit my mark like you said Elizabeth, but

Amy Gunn:

It would be nice. Come

Erica Slater:

On. Well sure.

But depending on your peer group, your benchmark of how much money you need to be happy and participate in your lifestyle is going to be different. So I feel like you said Elizabeth, we have a home, we can take vacations, I can have a reliable car, those security factors that money bring and being able to provide for my kids and being able to send them to schools that I want to choose and things like that, those security factors, once I check off those lists, it’s not necessarily about money after that because I’m not that. And I know that sounds silly, but Amy’s shaking her head, she’s confident that my champagne taste would take over if the disposable income was unlimited.

Amy Gunn:

No, I actually agree with you because I think there are times when I think about I’ve got friends that are buying second homes or additional vehicles or really, really fancy vehicles and I am like, I just don’t,

Erica Slater:

That’s complicated.

Amy Gunn:

It is complicated. It’s more responsibility. And is it success under traditional idea of success? Sure it is. I mean, a second house, a boat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it is so individual like you’re saying, it’s

Erica Slater:

Just so yeah. And you and I are aligned on that. I want to keep things tight. I am a person who doesn’t like a lot of clutter. I don’t want extras. I don’t want to have to deal with stuff that is distracting from focusing on the core things I want to do. And getting to that point has been freeing because once you check off those security boxes and it doesn’t become about money, and you do what you can to give yourself a nest egg and backup, then you can focus on is this making me happy? Am I fulfilled here? And you, not that I’m looking for another job, but taking a pay cut to be happier in a place when that doesn’t sound like a crazy thing to do. If you’re talking to someone who’s in that position, of course you’d leave a cutthroat job that you hate, that you make a ton of money at if you don’t need to be in that rat race or you’re able to provide a roof over a head and you have a working car. And that would make sense. But the other thing that comes to mind now, going to my mom, not my stepmom, I’ll talk on both of these wonderful women in my life. So my mom, God bless her, she’s so damn cute. So she got a new car the other day. It was time. And she’s like, can you come over and teach me how the technology works? Yes, mom. Yes, of course. And then she’s like, you want to drive my car?

So somehow on a Saturday, I stole away sitting in her new little car in the front yard, and we just had an hour long conversation, just the two of us. And let me tell you with my kids, her grandkids

And my wife and whatever, it never happens. It’s never just the two of us. And we had an hour conversation and then I take off to drive a car around the park and she goes to me, she’s talking about the girls and she says, I’ve never seen two kids who are as wonderfully behaved. You guys have done such a wonderful job with them. And in my head I was like, yeah, they’re good for you. But my gut reaction was like, thank you. That’s so flattering to hear. And it came out of my mouth almost without my head even thinking of it. And I said, the thing I’m more proud of is the fact that Kristen and I are strong, my wife. And I said, if you want to know what is the hardest part of this, it’s making sure that that doesn’t fall. Because that’s the easiest thing to do at this stage of my life is to, our career is very involved. It can be stressful. Raising two little kids is stressful and your marriage is so easy to put on the back burner or lose track of each other. I see it happening here and there along the way. And I realize in this conversation, being able to maintain those relationships and keeping everything afloat, if you will, personal, professional. And so family life, work life, and then my marriage is and

Amy Gunn:

Yourself

Erica Slater:

And myself, yeah, enough, keeping everything afloat enough and holding onto everything and continuing to evolve and not quitting any of them and not giving up on any of them feels like success, persistence. And I’ve kind of feel like I’ve lowered that bar because I’ve let go of a lot of that perfectionism. And the nice thing is that that has come from failing and surviving as Amy. You’re always good to say after that, it was a couple months ago, I’ll think about what we were talking about, I’m sure after we finished the podcast, but I said, God, what if that happens? And your immediate reaction was like, who cares? Will your wife still love you? You wake up the next morning? And it was such an immediate reaction. I’m like, oh yeah, that’s my mindset. You’re right. Who cares? Whatever, I’ll be

Amy Gunn:

Fine. That’s just no breaking it down to the bear. Like bad things happen. I know sometimes you have to dig deep. You’re like, okay, I’m still breathing.

Erica Slater:

But that’s it. That bar is now. It’s not from just being beat down in certain situations to appreciate that bar being there, and that’s what you need, but it makes you balance your internal ideas of success. And of course, those external ones, you have to take all that in, filter it, see if you’re blocking it out or saying, this person has this title, or I know this person made this much money, so now I’m on a lower rung. Pushing all that out is very freeing. But I do think it is important, and anyone struggling out there in your career first couple years who is still working for swamped by student loans, I’m swamped by a mortgage because I need to be in an area that’s semi safe in my city. I can’t afford hardly. That’s a lot of people’s stories, and I think that that is just as valid to be working towards that security before you get to redefine that. So I mean, in a nutshell, I am so grateful and feel very privileged that we can have this conversation. And I think we all went the route that that has always kind of been the goal to get to this point where you can have that privilege to have this conversation and not be talking about where’s the rent coming from next week. So I feel very grateful. I think gratefulness and finding happiness where you are is a big part of success. And I mean, sitting here at almost 39,

I’m sure at 55, 60 and 65, I’ll have some hopefully more enlightened idea of what success it’s probably going to be walking up the stairs without pain or something, and that’ll be good. But Jesus,

Amy Gunn:

Say, I’m 52 if you have some sica, right? I

Erica Slater:

Mean, I’m just hoping my knees make it. No,

But I think it’s a good exercise to kind of take through in both a future looking way and looking at the past of how you’ve kind of evolved through that. So thanks everybody for sharing your thoughts today. So after our discussion today, I think our wish over here at heels in the Courtroom for all of our listeners, is to take a minute to go through this exercise and think about your idea of personal success. What voices are you listening to, external and internal, and don’t be afraid to change that idea as you go through and reevaluate. So thanks for joining us today. We will see you next time on Heels in The Courtroom. Our new episodes drop every other Wednesday, and thanks for joining us. Bye.

Speaker 1:

Heels in the Courtroom is brought to you by the Simon Law Firm at the Simon Law Firm pc. We believe in the power of pooling resources in order to create powerful results. We often lend our trial skills and experience to lawyers around the country to achieve better results for their clients. Our attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you on your case, offering vast resources, seasoned litigators, and a sterling reputation. You can contact us at 2 4 1 2 9 2 9. If you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with Amy, Liz, Erica, Mary Elizabeth at Heels in the Courtroom Law, and subscribe today because the best lawyers never stop learning.