Career Pressures, The Holidays, And Taking Care Of Yourself

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Tony Sipp: Hi, and welcome back to The Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp and I have a very special guest with us today that will be talking about some very important issues impacting our industry. Please welcome Sonya Sigler.

Sonya Sigler: Hi, Tony. Hi, thank you for having me.

Tony Sipp: Thank you for being here. Sonya has an incredible resume that I can’t even begin to go. So, Sonya, can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Sonya Sigler: Sure. I’ve been a lawyer for 30 years, and my career has been almost completely in house. So I had a very unusual career path. I started as a baby lawyer at Sega, the video game company. So I was very popular with all my cousins, and then I went to Intuit and spent five years there. And I realized when I was there, and this is where my books come from, I realized I was an operations person with a law degree. So I left there and went to startups for 20 years. And somewhere along the line, I decided I really enjoyed coaching the executives and working with them and putting things in place from an operations standpoint. So that’s when I started the coaching and consulting, which is what I do now.

Tony Sipp: Awesome. That is fantastic. You’re very multitalented, which is why I brought you on, because today we want to talk about mental health, and I know you know just a little bit about that. So to get your expertise on the topic, because during the holidays, I noticed with friends outside of the profession and other professionals that there’s this thing called burnout happening. It happens within our industry, other industries, and people are going to other jobs, other careers because of the burnout. So can you talk to us a little bit about mental health and wellness in the legal industry?

Sonya Sigler: Yeah, I’m going to start with a story because it’s really important to set the context about where I’m coming from. Two days before I turned 35, I ended up in the emergency room thinking I was having a heart attack. So I’d been a lawyer for 10 years. I had three small children, I was volunteer at the school, school board. I had a lot of irons in the fire, and I just ended up with an undiagnosed health problem. It ended up being not a heart attack, it ended up being overactive thyroid. So once I got that under control, it ended up being fine. But, man, let me tell you, that downward slide into health problems and you can’t figure out what’s going on is tough. And so I learned the hard way how to say no and I learned the hard way that I had to put myself first. And not just me personally, but my family and what we wanted.

I think the lesson that I could take away from everything and that whole experience, because I was general counsel of a startup then. So it wasn’t like I was sitting at home or anything. I was traveling a lot. It was a crazy time. And I think you have to be true to yourself. And I want to talk a little bit more about what that means. Just from a goals and priority standpoint, not just for you, like why are you in this career, what do you hope to get out of it, but what do you want for your family, I thought sports were really important, so active, team work. My kids all played sports. Well three kids, three sports each. It was a whirlwind of driving and just going from place to place, just to be where we were from an obligation standpoint.

And I would say one of the things I learned, not just learning the word no and that that’s a complete sentence, but learning that you have to choose what you want to do and be true to yourself and your family and whatever those goals and priorities are, because sports are not important to everybody else. I have some friends who are like, my kids don’t play sports. They do other things. They do karate or they do ballet, just different things. And there’s no book that says you should do things. So I kind of want to remove that word should. You should do something. I mean instead of shoulding on ourselves, just what are those obligations that you do want to say yes to. We’re going into the holidays, and people say yes to things out of a sense of obligation. And I want to say, stop doing that, please. Please don’t do that to yourself. So knowing what’s important to you and your family and what those goals are, I think, is really just the first thing that I could say in terms of knowing yourself and what’s important to you.

Tony Sipp: Wow, that’s true. All very true. What I’ve noticed also is that with the burnout, people like you just stated, don’t know the cause of it.

(00:05:03)

They’re working at a job. They’re doing what they think is the right thing to do and how to achieve and especially in our field. Our field tells you things must be perfect, absolutely be perfect, or lives are ending or your job, really. So have you noticed or do you have any stories that you can tell about just that experience of having to be an overachiever, a high performer, and what you did to make peace with that?

Sonya Sigler: I think knowing yourself is really important, not just what those goals and priorities are for you and your family, but also how do you work best, like, what energizes you, what sucks the energy out of you. I prefer the slow and steady, like, to work at a slow and steady pace. But you know what? After how many years in the legal industry, I learned to work well in a crisis. So I’m amazing in a crisis with a deadline. So I thrive in crisis mode. I thrive with a deadline. But, you know, that takes a toll from a fear and anxiety standpoint and your health standpoint, and the first thing to go out the window, like, with all work travel was healthy eating and any exercise routine that I had.

So knowing yourself and how you thrive and what drives you, even from a motivational standpoint, like, what motivates you. I like money, but I’m not necessarily motivated by money. I’m motivated by a challenge. And so having a really crazy, hairy project to work on is exciting to me and getting noticed for it and appreciated for it and making it happen. That’s far more motivating to me than just the money. So I think knowing yourself and what energizes you is part of the equation to prevent burnout. Because when you can say, gosh, I’ve got to do this repetitive task. Like, when I was CFO for a startup, so ran finance, one of the things I had to do was the billing, like sending out the bills and also paying things. And I was, like, gathering the hours to bill clients. And I was like, didn’t I just do this last month?

Part of it was setting up the process, setting up the procedure, making templates for everything, training people on it. That, to me, was the exciting, challenging, thrilling part. The doing the task monthly, that was not for me. That was soul sucking. So knowing that about yourself can keep you out of burnout. So if I have too many of those repetitive tasks or my schedule is too packed and I don’t have any breathing room, those are things that can take me down the path to burnout as opposed to re-energizing me. So it’s like a new day tomorrow. Not only is it a new day, but I have a renewed energy level. So knowing what those are for you is really important.

I’ll give you a current example. So right now it’s fall, not quite winter, and the daylight savings time went away. So now it gets dark, like at 4:00 o’clock where I’m living. And I am sunshine driven. So I know in order to stay out of that seasonal affective disorder, whatever that SAD thing is, I need a SAD lamp. So I have one on my desk, and I know I need to walk outside, even if it’s for five minutes, to go get the mail and come back. I know I need that sunshine, literally lift my face to the sun. So I think knowing yourself well enough to know how your energy cycle works and how your motivational cycle works is really important.

Tony Sipp: That is important. And, yeah, SAD is real. So, thankfully, the light boxes do help. They work. People that are suffering or going through some challenging situations, it’s a good option that you can find on Amazon to buy and get that.

Sonya Sigler: It was like ten bucks.  I mean it’s great.

Tony Sipp: It’s really nothing. And the ROI, if you will, is very high. I think that’s definitely a lesson for people to take in and just look at as a possible alternative or an assistant to help you through the season and anytime, really. I know that you have been, I mean you’re active. You are very active and you’re everywhere. Even when I’m not doing this with you, I see you on other things and blogs and all your writings, which are incredible, by the way. If I haven’t mentioned folks, she’s an author as well. So towards the end or on the website, please check out the links to her website once you like and subscribe to the station of the Paralegal Voice podcast. So, Sonya, I’d like to try to address some other things that I’ve been seeing or hearing.

(00:10:00)

A lot of people getting to this point and towards a holiday. I mean, I think September was really the main month, but refocusing and you mentioned reprioritizing. What is important to you? Is this a good time for people to do that? Start making a situation where they can re-evaluate what their goals are? And instead of the goals that you thought you started, then you were just going with and then you realized my health wasn’t good, I wasn’t eating right, I was depressed. I got a dog that made me go out for at least 20 minutes. He has to go. I have to go. That was a great thing in my life, made it really enriching, and he’s a great pup, too. So any situations like that where re-evaluating your circumstances were helpful. So can you tell us anything about any situation similar to that.

Sonya Sigler: You know, I was part of Vistage, which is a peer-to-peer executive coaching group, and you are part of a group of people similarly situated to you. So I was in a key man group or key woman group. The people had a certain P&L responsibility and were not the CEO, so they were one level down or close to that and we had issues that we would work. And one of the things that we would do on a regular basis so at the end of the year and then also check in quarterly was, what are your goals. And it was not just, what are your goals. It wasn’t New Year’s resolutions or anything like that. It was, what are you going to keep doing and what do you need to stop doing?

So what do I want to keep doing? I want to remain vigilant about time with my family. I want to remain vigilant about taking on projects at work that will move us forward from a revenue generation standpoint. So I thought that that was a really great framework to say, what do I want to do and then, what’s your big, hairy audacious goal or BHAG. And setting that really gets you out of the day to day thinking and into the what if and the imagination and the gosh, if I could just wave my magic wand, which I have in front of me at my desk–

Tony Sipp: She actually has a magic wand.

Sonya Sigler: What could I make happen? And really goes back to being true to yourself and knowing yourself. So I keep harping on these two things because I’m writing a book about this right now of success factors. And this is the crux of it, is knowing yourself and being true to yourself. So like I said, it might mean saying no to sports. It’s probably not going to be saying yes to every holiday party. It might mean staying home, putting your pajamas on, making popcorn and hot chocolate, and watching a silly Hallmark movie, which two years ago, my husband and I did that almost every night and didn’t go out. We actually watched all these crazy holiday movies and he’s like, don’t make me do that again. Okay, one or two, maybe fine. So just do stuff that energizes you or that can keep you in a place that is calm and restorative.

And I actually have a list of things and I’ll get back to the goal setting in just a sec. But I actually have a list of things that can re-energize me. Whether it’s knitting two rows on whatever project I’m knitting on, whether it’s reading five pages in a book, or whether it’s just walking outside to get the mail, whether it’s going to pet the cat or make a cup of tea just, like, move away from the computer or Zoom or whatever you’re doing and just have a change of scenery. So I actually have a list of those kind of things that will re-energize me or reset me. But in terms of goal setting and being vigilant about that, it’s not a one and done thing. You have to look at those on a — I look at them on a daily basis, but also looking at them on a weekly basis because you have to track what you’re doing to say, am I meeting my goal?

So I have 10 goals and I actually have them in my notebook, and one of them is family time. So how are we actually spending time together as a family? Like, I’m flying later today down to the Bay Area to spend time with my brother and my nieces. So it’s like, how are we actually doing that? And are we integrating it into our lives like we want? I’ll give you an example of what really did it for me.

Tony Sipp: Why don’t we take a quick commercial and come back into that? We’ll start talking about some of the boundaries and motivational factors. So we will be right back with the Paralegal Voice podcast.

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Tony Sipp: And we’re back to the Paralegal Voice podcast. My name is Tony Sipp, and I’m here with Sonya Sigler. We were just talking about mental health issues, setting boundaries. Sonya, can you finish what you were saying before we took a break?

Sonya Sigler: Yeah. One of the things I did to really be vigilant about how I want to spend my time is I did a mind map. So I got laid off from a job at the beginning of 2014, and it was really devastating and a little bit debilitating because I was in the middle of getting divorced. I’d moved out. I was in a place on my own, and so it was just like, okay. And I was the sole breadwinner at the time, and so it was just a lot to take in. And so, I was looking for a full-time job. And then when I really sat down and looked at my obligations or things that I wanted to be doing, I made a mind map, and I put in the middle a life I don’t need a vacation from. So that was my goal, was a life I don’t need a vacation from. And I was strapped financially, so I only had about five, and I’m going to call it funny money. I only had about $500 of funny money for something to happen, like the car breaking down, whatever it was. That’s how minimal it was. And so I was paying for two houses. I was paying for medical insurance, like, all this stuff.

And so I just had very little wiggle room, and I was like, I really need to stop looking for a full-time job and start consulting, because I have control over my schedule, and I have control over my income level. And my kids were all in high school so that was — or junior high and high school. And so I was like, oh, my gosh, I really need to be vigilant about my time that I have left with them before they go off to college and out on their own. So I realized, holy cow, I’ve got two years left of my oldest, three years left, and then five years. So I have five years of time to really cement a good relationship with them. And I broke it down into how I want to spend my time and what I needed to do financially, because paying for three kids in college all at the same time is quite a wallop. And being divorced and having two sets of expenses, money is just flying out the door.

So it was looking at, how do I actually want to spend my time now that I’m in my house on my own. I have my kids every other week. It’s quiet when I don’t have them. Everything stays where I put it. And I realized I have to plan ahead, because otherwise, then I’m sitting there by myself with no plans, and I’m a very social person. So it just required me to think differently about what I wanted to say yes to and what I didn’t want to take on. So I sat down and said, how do I want to spend my time? I want a life I don’t need a vacation from. So what does that actually mean? How am I going to reset? How am I going to re-energize on a daily basis?

So I’ve written a couple articles that are on LinkedIn, one of which is all about self-care. And when you think you don’t need self-care or when you don’t think you have time for it, because all of those things that you do on a day-to-day basis can overwhelm you or they can energize you. And I’ll give you one small, funny example. I like to keep my kitchen clean, and I don’t like to have out on the counter. And so, I like to wash the dishes. Well, I don’t like to wash dishes. I like someone else to wash the dishes and I put them away and then keeping the counter clean. So then when I come out in the morning, I come out to a clean kitchen and it’s beautiful and I feel like cooking. And so I know that that’s one little thing that energizes me. And with three kids, it doesn’t necessarily happen, but I know on the weeks that I don’t have them, it totally is the way to go. So that’s like one small thing.

(00:20:00)

Okay, I like to exercise every morning, go out, run a little, walk a little, but instead of beating myself up about not running every day, I would walk the first block and I would re-evaluate and I would say, do I want to run today or do I want to walk? How energetic am I feeling? And so that’s what would dictate it instead of judging myself for not running. So that was a small change.

I write about this in my second book, what’s Next for my career? Whose voice do you hear in your head and is it positive or negative? So I heard a lot of negative voices and a lot of judgmental voices for a long time. And so running was my way of getting rid of those voices. And it was my dad’s and my grandfather’s voices that were negative. And so it was identifying it and saying, I don’t have to listen to you, and replacing it with something positive, like, at least you’re out here exercising. You go, girl. Just staying in that positive mindset or even neutral is better than being in that negative.

And I think when you feel like you’re close to burnout and you feel like you are overwhelmed, you feel like you don’t even want to go into the office, or you feel like you don’t even want to turn your computer on, you have the choice. You have the choice each time, each action, to do something positive. So if you’re overwhelmed, break it down into smaller tasks. Like, what can I actually do that’s going to give me a win. Make that one phone call, write that one email, write the interrogatories, whatever the task is, do one thing and then have a little celebration. Now, I’m going to go get a cup of tea, whatever it is for you, or now I’m going to go walk for five minutes and talk to a couple of people in the office. It’s almost like you need that incentive so the risk and the reward, the risk of doing the action even when you don’t want to, and the reward of having done it and feeling accomplished, and then actual reward, like, oh, I’m going to walk around and talk to somebody in the office because I’m social and that’s what I like. For you, it might mean if you’re an introvert, it might mean reading a book for a couple of minutes. It just depends on what going back to being true to yourself. It just depends on what works for you.

Tony Sipp: So in an office setting, and I think a good majority of our listeners are like paralegals or legal professionals, one of the fears and you had the opportunity to actually work for yourself in the consulting. I think a lot of fears are, oh my gosh, I’m trying to set up boundaries. And when they’re calling me past work hours, the like, my fear is I’m going to get fired if I don’t do it. My fear is they’re going to say I’m incompetent. I don’t know what I’m doing, that’s why it’s not done. You should have had this done, planning when they gave it to you four hours earlier or even a week. It doesn’t matter. But those are the same situations. You have a lot of insecurities and a lot of boundaries that you really need to put in place but don’t. So how can we address setting those boundaries and limitations as well as having a job where you don’t feel you need to take a vacation?

Sonya Sigler: Yeah, I think the pressure we feel in the legal industry to be perfect and never make a mistake is so ingrained that it’s very difficult to let that go. And sometimes we don’t need to let it go, but we need to work in the parameters of doing good work. So good work product and being cognizant of what it means if it’s not good work product. So just taking a step back and saying, how important is this? Does it need to be perfect or does it need to be 90% and you’re going to have the boss that says, no, it needs to be 110%. Right? And this was not the guy that hired me, but the guy that was the boss over the department at Sega had been in the military, had been at Pillsbury for 25 years, and now was general counsel. And he had a very certain way of expectations and how you should be. You should be in from 7:00 to 7:00. I was like, well, you’re not paying me for 12 hours a day. Why do I need to be here from 7:00 to 7:00?

And then he would give you projects on Friday afternoon at 4:00 so that you would have to work over the weekend. And after three or four weekends of this, where I produced a binder of stuff and work product that he never ever looked at, I was like, I am not doing this again. And was that a career limiting move? Probably. But for my mental health and my well-being of not working on the weekends, that’s what it took for me to say no. Was it a possibility of me getting fired? Absolutely. Did I take it anyway? Yes. Because I thought working for that asshole was not the way to be.

So sometimes it means leaving the job that you’re in, and sometimes it means finding a different way to work with that person. But I also think that pressure. So one of the things that drove me nuts is in house counsel is the sales guys would wait until the last minute and then dump a contract on me and expect it to be done tomorrow or today so they could get their commission and they would meet their numbers by March 31 or June 30 or whatever or December 31.

(00:25:18)

And do I want to be writing and drafting contracts on December 31? Absolutely not. So when I got to pick the fiscal year, it was not a calendar year end. Know your parameters. And if that’s true, let’s say I did have those kind of deadlines and December 31 is the end of the fiscal year, then I know I’m going to be working like crazy person the last two weeks of December. I should plan to take a vacation to Australia, somewhere warm in January. So you just have to look at the whole picture.

But I want to go back to the pressure about not making mistakes. And I want to say you have to define what success means for you. So not just like I said about the life and the priorities and the goals, but what does it mean on this particular task that you’re working on? What does success look like for you? Does it mean getting it in on time? Does it mean asking more detailed questions? Does it really have to be done by four today? Or do you really just want it because you want to get it off your plate and know that it’s going to be done? So I learned the hard way to ask more detailed questions of the business people that I was working with, like, this is in house. So I learned to ask those kind of questions. Does it have to be done?

Tony Sipp: Today and what’s your deadline, you know.

Sonya Sigler: And when does the client expect it? Because when you’re asking paralegal to do something, that’s probably not the deadline, the client deadline, it might be your deadline. So I would say dig a little deeper to find out what that is. And I think the crux of a good working relationship is knowing that when you’re asked something by a particular person that that’s a hard deadline, a soft deadline, not even a real deadline, like knowing that and asking the questions. Because I think we’re all willing to work hard, we’re all willing to put the time in and do the work. But when we get burned and it’s not a real deadline, it makes us very wary of putting ourselves out for that person again or that workload. So I would say asking those deeper questions of does this really need to be done by 4:00 p.m.? Or yes, it is a deadline. Yes, it’s a filing (00:27:32), we screwed up like that stuff happens and you are going to have to accommodate it.

I would say, let me give you an example from my coaching and consulting. I have clients all over the world, so I have client in Singapore, she’s started her own business. We meet and talk Saturday mornings at 7:00 a.m. It’s 11:00 p.m. for her, but 7:00 a.m. for me.

Tony Sipp: Wow. Kudos, first of all.

Sonya Sigler: So I try not to work on Fridays. So when I put that plan together in 2014, one of the things was I needed to be on the field at 4:00 p.m. on Fridays to be the team photographer for all the football games so Friday night lights. So I was like, well, if I have to be there at 4:00, I really don’t want to work on Fridays. I want to just go run my errands or take a break and then get back to it. So for me, time is kind of fluid now because I do have control over it. So I don’t mind working at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday because everybody else in my household is asleep and I’m a morning person, so I’m awake and that’s when my client needs me, so I know I can just plan ahead for it. So I think with all the remote work and the hybrid work, if we can be cognizant of, does it have to be done by 4:00 or can I do it after I put the kids to bed. So you’re still getting it today by 11:00 p.m. It’s not the 4:00 p.m. but do you really need it at 4:00 or do you just need it sometime today before you come in tomorrow?

Tony Sipp: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that. And Judd’s going to be really disappointed because she’s also a huge football fan and her son, I believe, played as well. I don’t believe. I know that he did. So, Judd(ph), you missed out on this one. But Sonya, we will come back right after these messages with the Paralegal Voice.

[Music]

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Tony Sipp: And welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp and I’m here with Sonya Sigler.

(00:30:07)

We’re closing out and we wanted to just talk to you, Sonya. Where can people get in contact with you or what other tidbits of wisdom can you share with us and our listeners?

Sonya Sigler: You can get in contact with me two ways. One, on LinkedIn, just Sonya Sigler, and two on my own website, sonyasigler.com. And there’s information about my books, one of which is called ‘Welcome To The Next Level’ and that’s really about how do you learn the art of self-promoting and being a thought leader, to get promoted, to get a new job, whatever your purpose is. The second book is ‘What’s next for my career’ and that’s really peeling the layers back to figure out what it is you do want. And I’ll talk more about the assessment that’s in there in just a second. And then I’m working on a third book, which is called ‘Set Yourself Up for Success,’ what are the five essential skills you need to master, no matter what your job is. And the know yourself that we’ve been talking about today, that’s the crux of that book.

Tony Sipp: Also, I’m going to add that you can find Sonya, she does some presentations for noon for the San Diego Paralegal Association called Virtual Lunch with Leaders. And she was a guest and I got to hear her speak on that, which really made me want to do that. It’s a free program, go to SDPA. It’s a great thing for every legal professional to listen and sit in on and listen to it’s at lunch, noon Pacific Time. But wisdom, little tidbits from the book and closing remarks.

Sonya Sigler: Yeah, let’s talk about the assessment I mentioned. So, earlier, I talked about wanting to do that mind map and the center of it was a life I don’t need a vacation from. So what did that actually look like? And then I had to really assess the parts of my life that were working according to that and not working according to that desire. And so when I said earlier, what do I want to keep doing, what do I want to stop doing? It just is a continual iterative process to figure that out. So that assessment is really important. So knowing what works for you, let’s talk about getting off track.

So when you look at your assessment and you figure out, wow, I’m not even close to going the right direction to achieve what I want and you figured out you’re off track or you’re overwhelmed or you feel like you’re headed to burnout and you just can’t even think of anything positive, what do you do? So I think taking a step back and physically taking some deep breaths is really important. So just being like, stop, take three deep breaths, and then be like, okay, what do I need to be doing no, what is important now, what do I need to be doing right now to either get myself back on track or to start again tomorrow with a more positive attitude? I think that you can choose that. I’m going to say autopilot versus intentionality and being intentional about your actions. And the more intentional you are, the more aligned you’re going to be with your own goals. So that assessment and looking at each part like, do I really like this job, what do I like about it, what do I not like about it, what’s driving me nuts about my boss or my coworker or my spouse or a kit, whatever it is, just do that assessment.

And in chapters six and seven, that’s the whole assessment, chapters and section of the book, ‘What’s Next for My Career?’ I take you through all those different parts. So just asking five, six, seven questions for each part to get you to think about aspects like how do you actually feel when you drive into work and pull in the parking lot? Do you get a pit in your stomach? Or are you super energized to walk into the building and say hi to the receptionist and say hi to other people you see along the way to your desk? Like, physically, how do you feel? So all of those things play into am I aligned with what I want or am I not aligned with what I want. And so just figuring that out is super helpful. I know that I say yes to things and then I get anxious about actually doing it. So I can’t believe I said yes to going to that party. Now I don’t want to go. it’s raining out, blah, blah, blah.

So now I came up with a strategy to say, okay, I’m going to give it one hour and then I’m going to reassess. So remember I talked about walking that first block and then reassessing. Do I really want to run today? Do I have that much energy? Same thing about going to a party. I’m going to meet one new person. So I have a goal at the party. I’m going to meet one new person. I’m going to reassess. Do I still want to stay after an hour? And if not, if the answer is no, then I leave and I’m fine with it. No one said I had to stay at the party till the very end, so just check in with yourself. And I think we forget to do that and we just are full steam ahead I got to keep going the same direction till it’s all done. You don’t have to do it all. Remember when I said I had that health problem that was eye opening because I had an orchestra concert that Friday. I had to bow out of and they had to find a substitute for me to play, like four or five things like that, that were huge in my mind.

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Well, let me tell you, the world didn’t end. World kept going, the concert got played. It just wasn’t me on trombone. All these things really don’t have the same impact we give them in our mind. And so, I think if we could do a hard assessment and our honest assessment is what I really call it, that will give us a better roadmap going forward.

Tony Sipp: Be mindful of being mindful. Sonya, thank you again for being our guest on this and thank you for talking about these issues that directly impact our industry. You clearly are very well-informed and have found a strategy to help others and I think we’re all here to help others and lift them off. Maybe this could be the positive part of their day, listening to the paralegal podcast. So, Sonya, have a great holiday. Thank you again. I know I will see you probably tomorrow, who knows? But thank you again and folks, this concludes this episode of The Paralegal Voice. I look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great one.

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