Overcoming the Likeability Trap, with Alicia Menendez

Alicia (00:03):

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts

Ashley Steckler (00:35):

Hi, I’m Ashley Steckler

Stephanie Everett (00:36):

And I’m Stephanie Everett. And this is episode 373 of the Lawyerist podcast. Part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, I’m talking with author and TV correspondent, Alicia Menendez, author of The likeability Trap.

Ashley Steckler (00:51):

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Postali, LawPay and POSH Virtual Receptionists. We wouldn’t be able to do this show without their support stay tuned. We’ll tell you more about them later on.

Stephanie Everett (01:02):

So Ashley you’ve, you’ve just gotten back from a little vacation, which is always, I think lovely.

Ashley Steckler (01:09):

Yeah, it was so nice. It was so refreshing. I had most of the week off last week

Stephanie Everett (01:15):

And I think we can safely share also that you did a pretty good job of checking out for, I know one little instance.

Ashley Steckler (01:24):

Yeah. Admittedly, there were a couple little instances, two small windows. Part of it for me, you know, we have our tasks and accountabilities so well managed around here that I was able to go in and prep for my time away and like move some things off my plate, reprioritze some dates. So I felt well prepared when I left, but we have a lot of stuff happening around here. Exciting new stuff that as I was preparing to leave, I didn’t really wanna miss. And so what ended up happening was I was on my vacation and I wanted to check in on those couple things, cuz I knew that they would be moving as I was, as I was out. So I did that and snuck in to slack to check out the messages and actually one thing had been lifted and it was moving and I, I didn’t need to check in on it at all. And then there was another message while I was sneaking in that caught my attention. And I chimed in to you all and said, you know, this could be something that I could just resolve, you know?

Stephanie Everett (02:35):

Yes, to which I kindly think I replied something to the effect of thanks Ashley. We’ve got it. Go away.

Ashley Steckler (02:42):

You did. And it was so nice. You know, one, I felt a little caught two, it was a nice reminder. I was actually enjoying a nice little brunch of crepes at the time waiting for the food and it was such a nice, refreshing reminder that one. Yeah, you got it. I didn’t actually even need to know any of the details because I knew that it didn’t need my attention. And it was also this nice to me, little reminder that we talk about around here that when you’re, when you’re gone take that time and be away because you need to have that time to recharge and refresh and, and I didn’t need to be thinking about whatever it was that I wanted to check up on. It was my own curiosity. Right. And I was able to, I was able to unhook and it was unhook. That’s a funny, funny that I, I bring it up and talk about it that way for me, I like coming to work. I’m excited out what I’m doing here. I’m excited about what we have coming up. And it was actually kind of unhooking myself. Like it’s fine. And so it was a nice reminder to hear that from you too. Hey, we see you. Bye have fun. Right.

Stephanie Everett (03:54):

I think it’s a good reminder for everyone because yeah, like I like what I do too. And sometimes I think I said to my husband earlier this year, I said, will you occasionally just say to me to work less because I’m just naturally going to work more than I need to because I enjoy it. And I like it and I get involved in my work and it just takes up time and space and, and that’s a thing. And I have to kind of fight that times and tell myself, no, you don’t have to do this task today or right now, or somebody else can do it. Or you don’t. It is like a mental conversation for me that I have to have with myself a lot. And so it was easy for me to say that to you, but I need to hear it as well. So I’ll preemptively give you permission to remind me when I take my next vacation.

Ashley Steckler (04:41):

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I, I feel much the same way. And so I like that we’ve created an environment where, where we remind each other of those things.

Stephanie Everett (04:49):

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, that’s the environment. I think everyone should strive to create in their firm. Most of the time when I press people, when I talk to them and they’ll tell me like emergencies came up or this client thing came up while I was out, usually if I press them on a little bit, it’s like, actually that wasn’t really an emergency or that really didn’t need my, my attention. Just like kind of the thing that came up when you were out, it was like, yes, you could have solved that for us, but we could have solved it without you too. And sometimes it takes you being a way to give your team a chance to step up and solve the problem without you, or quite frankly, to see what breaks right. Sometimes while you’re away, something actually might break and it might go wrong. Probably won’t be malpractice and probably will give you a chance to improve it for the next time.

Ashley Steckler (05:39):

Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie Everett (05:40):

So now let’s check out my conversation with Alicia.

Alicia Menendez (05:44):

Hey, I’m Alicia Menendez. I am an anchor at MSNBC. I’m a mom of two daughters. I host the Latina to Latina podcast, which you can find wherever you are listening to this podcast. And I’m here today to talk about my book, The likeability Trap. Thanks so much for having me.

Stephanie Everett (06:02):

Thanks so much for being here. I am so excited to dive into this book because it spoke to me. It is real, and I know all of our listeners and especially the women out there, this will resonate. So maybe just to kick us off, what is The likeability Trap?

Alicia Menendez (06:20):

Ooh, you know, I originally imagined that I was gonna write like an Eat Pray Love for likeability, where I would, you know, do yoga and eat gelato and learn to care less about being well liked as a person who cares very much about what others think of me. And as a person who is governed, I other people’s opinions, I imagined that there were women out there who were just sort of living their own life, marching to the beat of their own drum. And they had it figured out. And what became interesting to me since my fundamental skills, that I’m an interviewer, was that as I interviewed those women, I learned that even those women who were not gonna by likeability felt that they paid a price for being so brazenly themselves. And that was especially true when they were ambitious women. It was especially true when they were women who worked in male dominated fields.

Alicia Menendez (07:09):

And so that core question of what it means to be a likable lady leader became my new focus. And what I found is a lot of what your listeners will know because they have all lived it, which is that I call it the Goldilock conundrum too hot, too cold woman is never quite right. I’m sure we’ll dive into that. The more ambitious you are as a woman, the less other people like you, just because. That’s an idea that Cheryl Sandberg popularized with, with her Ted talk and her book, the, and this moment that we’re living in, where there is a call for authentic leadership. And what we’re telling women is show up at your full self, right? Be authentic, bring your full self to work. But then we’re also dinging them with a penalty when they do, when they show up as a mom with a messy hair bun, when they show up as a person who has other things happening in their life. And so those were the three big buckets that I wanted to dig into. And then the secondary component is just the way we internalize all of this and the cost, you know, forget about the financial cost, the cost we pay in the rate of our Ascension and professional success. There’s a also just when I lay my head down at night, how much am I thinking about what other people think of

Stephanie Everett (08:24):

Me? Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about the Goldilocks conundrum and it’s so resonated because as women and as women leaders, we often hear like, you have to be this, or you have you, you articulated this so, well, you have to be enough, but you can’t be too much. So you have to fall somewhere in this special, magical place. And we loved this quote in the book where it was like in the past, you could just be promoted based on the fact that you were this dry regular person hitting your numbers. But now there’s this idea that you have to sparkle and yeah, it just, I’m sure after writing this book, you’ve probably had so many women come up to you and be like, yes, this is what I feel every day.

Alicia Menendez (09:03):

Yes. Which is the best part about writing a book, which is that, you know, that you are not alone in the things that you are feeling. If you are very lucky, the vast majority of feedback that women get is critical to feedback. Meaning people love to talk to us about the ways that we self present the tone of our voice. Is it too low? Is it too high? How we sit in a chair, how we use our hands. And that feedback tends to go in two directions. Either. You are told you are too aggressive, too assertive, too much. Yes, you get it done. But people don’t like you in the process, you need to, to own it down. Then there are the women who are told that everybody loves them, right? Every, everyone in the office feels warmly toward them. They’re the life of the party.

Alicia Menendez (09:43):

They’re the person who brings in the cupcakes on everybody’s birthday. But people are just not sure they have what it takes. They don’t take up enough space in the room. They don’t take up enough oxygen. They’re told that they’re not off. And there are also a lot of women like myself. Who’ve been given both sets of feedback, right? Who in certain contexts have been told were too much in certain contexts have been told were not enough, which shows you how context specific and how subjective all of that feedback is. And what is so frustrating. I think, especially for women who tend to fall in the you’re too assertive, you’re too aggressive is that you may have a male colleague, right? You may be at a firm or you have a male colleague who is being told that he is doing an awesome job because he is showing up exactly the way that you are showing up. And the difference is that we expect men to show up that way. We expect men to assert themselves. We don’t expect that of women. And so women, when women do that, it very often offends people’s expectations of what they believe they want from women.

Stephanie Everett (10:46):

Yes. I mean the most likely place that I think this comes up for us is like in the courtroom. An aggressive male, you know, an aggressive male attorney is the bulldog. An aggressive woman is a bitch. And that’s just a known thing.

Alicia Menendez (11:01):

Can I ask you though, does that play out differently depending if you are arguing your case before a judge or a jury, like, are you more mindful of that when there is a jury and.

Stephanie Everett (11:09):

Yes,

Alicia Menendez (11:10):

Cuz that’s the thing it’s like, then there are like 12 people, 14 people whose opinions matter.

Stephanie Everett (11:14):

Yes. I mean right or wrong people can judge me, but, and it’s been a little while since I’ve been in a courtroom, so maybe things have changed. But up until a few years ago when I was still practicing law, I never appeared in before a jury, I would wear a skirt scoot suit. Like occasionally if it was a Friday, maybe I put my nice pants suit on, but I was in, you know, with panty hose, like the, which I know sounds so crazy. But like I remember PR when I first joined the firm, this female partner sat us down and she was like, ladies, you will wear panty host. And so I always had simple pearls. I mean, it sounds so like, you know, you just tried to, you tried to minimize yourself. Always said, I don’t want the jury to think about me. I want them to think about my client and the case. And so I, and I would even take my engagement ring off because I don’t want them to, I don’t want them criticizing. And I know you write a lot about candidates and like Hillary Clinton, we saw this, right? Like everyone is just picking apart every little thing that they weigh or say or do. And so I was just for myself, I was just trying to make it a blank slate and just make my arguments win.

Alicia Menendez (12:20):

Right. And, and this is in part, the concept of covering, which is anyone who has a marginalized, marginalized identity has been through this, which is, you know, if you are LGBTQ plus and you work in an environment where you don’t feel that you sure that maybe you went on a cruise with your partner, maybe you just went out this weekend. And when people say, what do you do? You say you were at a family, barbecue, right? You like are constantly trying to deflect. Another example is, you know, women covering up their grace so that they don’t face age bias. You know, there are so many Spanish speakers not speaking Spanish to each other and office because they don’t wanna draw attention to the fact that they are in that environment othered in some way. And so, yeah, I think that’s like a pretty core experience of trying to strip things down to the lowest common denominator.

Stephanie Everett (13:07):

Yeah. And this idea that you have to, you had to be a part of the club and you have to show, you know, I remember being a young professional and I just so wanted to be part of the guys. So I showed up differently. And now like in the, in light of me too, and all the things we’re experiencing now, like the world is just changing so fast. And it’s so interesting cuz things that I know I experienced 20 years ago, I’m like, wow, that wouldn’t fly today. And people think, people think my are so crazy. And I was like, no, that was just how it was. It just, we don’t even realize we’ve lived through that. So I think this other concept that you, you hit on so well in the book is that for some women we are driven by this need to be liked.

Stephanie Everett (13:49):

So part of it is we’re getting judged by people about how we show up. But then part of it is this idea that we’re judging ourselves kind constantly around do people like me and am I accepted or you know, all the things that come with that. And I think reading your book, it felt like you found that to be the case with women, especially. And it occurred to me like, I don’t know if men think about like, I don’t know if my husband goes to work every day and thinks about, does his team team like him. Do his customers like him.

Alicia Menendez (14:18):

Right. And, and part of what I landed on is yes, women are acculturated across cultures. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon to think of themselves in relations to others. And I think that that can actually be an incredible superpower, right? That you are aware of the way that your actions impact others. You’re aware of other people’s feelings where I think it becomes a real challenge for women is when you are completely governed and dictated by what other people think. And part of what I wanted to clarify for people was this, the more I focused on work, the more I realized that in my life life, right? And I work a lot, let’s say I work 60 hours a week. So like the other few hours that I’m awake and with my family and friends, I only wanna be with people who allow me to show up as my full authentic self part of this process for me was a real editing down of my friend group to be like, who, who do I feel I can really up as myself with at work though?

Alicia Menendez (15:13):

I don’t know that many people have the luxury of truly not caring what their manager thinks of them not caring, what the lead on their team thinks of them not caring, what their client thinks of them. I mean, there, there is an element of, of this that is naturally relational that never quite goes away where I think it becomes more challenging for women is that sometimes what women need to do in order to get the job done sometimes in the service of their client, for example, you know, offends people, sensibility of what a woman should do or how a and should show up in the world. And it’s why I think there are some things we can do to advocate for ourselves. I think there are a lot of things we can do to advocate for other people. What I think is an oversimplification is this idea that simply caring less is the way to contend with the likeability trap.

Stephanie Everett (16:14):

Yeah. And say more, cuz you even talk about just the emotional energy it would take to not care

Alicia Menendez (16:21):

Like there. There, there there’s a brilliant psychologist. She has passed that. You know, she talks about this concept of rumination and how for women, sometimes one idea or one anxiety can lead to another their idea. And suddenly you’re in a tailspin about something that you did in the fourth grade. Yeah. I mean like, you know, let’s say you have a young associate, you want her focused on doc review. You don’t want her spinning out of control over whether or not she properly, you know, power posed during your morning meeting. And that to me is part of the, where managers need to think about this, which is like, what energy are you asking people to use in the service of something that doesn’t ultimately impact the outcomes of the work? I felt it was one of the most salient pieces of advice that I got in the course of the book, which was a management executive talking about, you know, when you sit down and when you have a feedback session and when someone says to you, you’re too assertive, you’re too aggressive, which I’m gonna guess is the majority of your listeners that you say, thank you so much for that feedback too assertive, compared to whom would you say this about John?

Alicia Menendez (17:28):

Or is this just something that you feel is specific to me? And then the next piece of it, which I thought was me even more meaningful, which was, can you draw a line for me from your perception of how I’m showing up to how it impacts the results of my work? Now there’s always the possibility that there is a connection between those two things, right? It’s why I don’t poo the idea that stylistic elements sometimes do impact the results of someone’s work. So, you know, someone may say to you sure you consider yourself deliberate. I appreciate that you consider yourself deliberate. Sometimes your de deliberations shows up. As in decision two weeks ago, we were supposed to deliver a client to the deck. You couldn’t decide what was the core argument on slide three. And we ended up being two days late in delivering it. Okay. That is now an example of how your style impacts the results. And you can adjust yourself accordingly more often than not though. What happens is when you, you ask someone to draw that line, they can’t. And that is where we want things to be headed, right? That when we receive feedback, when we give feedback, it is focused on results and focused on whether or not people are delivering, whatever it is they’re supposed to be delivering.

Stephanie Everett (18:49):

Yeah. That resonates.

Alicia Menendez (18:51):

It’s so funny. Two of my, more than two, but two of my best friends or attorneys and early in the book tour, they came to a, a book, reading says pre pandemic. And they of course were like, there’s a lot of good stuff in here to, you know, help people so that when they are giving feedback, they are not being for sued for the way that they give you back. And I was like, ladies, that is not the purpose of this advice. That’s

Stephanie Everett (19:15):

How lawyers think, man, we’re always risk avoidance litigation. Yeah. We can’t help it. Well, let’s take a quick break. We’ll hear from our sponsors. And when we come back, we’ll dive back in.

Zack Glaser (19:26):

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Stephanie Everett (21:31):

One of the concepts. You talk about the in the book as well, is this idea of enough? And what resonated with us is like we’re always trying to improve and be better and be governed around, you know, what should we do? What should we not do? How can we strive to live our ideal life? I think what you do is bring out this other idea for us of authenticity. And is there ever a point where we can just sit and say, I like me, this is enough.

Alicia Menendez (21:58):

Okay. So I think that is a brilliant question, but I also think enough as a mom, enough as a wife, enough as partner. And by that, I mean a law partner in this case, like a, you know, like which thing are you measuring on? And yes, of course you, you wanna measure yourself in your totality, but I’m not sure that’s possible. And like, I think gaining clarity at work around who the stakeholders are, for example, right? Like it is important that your manager likes to you or at least important that your manager values you and understands what it is you bring to the team. You need everyone on your team to feel that way. Not necessarily, but sort of gaining clarity. And then, you know, similarly in your life, like for me, it’s important that my kids like me, it’s important that my husband like me, it’s important that one or two friends like me, but really cultivating that’s sphere of influence.

Alicia Menendez (22:50):

Right. And then to your deeper point, which I recognize that I’m avoiding because it is the harder one, which is like, how do you sit and feel good about yourself? And I really believe, and I wish that I had a better answer for this, but I’ll tell you what has been most helpful for me, which is having people call it different things. A group of girlfriends, a text thread, a WhatsApp thread, a, you know, kitchen cabinet, people who know you well, like really know you well, do you know what I mean? Like they see you with your flaws and your imperfections, but then also with your greatest potential and sense of possibility and who you can come to when you have interactions that I would say, feel funky or feel not right. Or when you receive feedback and you’re not sure whether it’s legitimate or not, who can help you sort through it.

Alicia Menendez (23:44):

I can’t do this work all on my own. Like that is something that I have come to accept, which is I need a peer group that can both hold me accountable and say yes, that actually, you know, that matches our experience of you. Sometimes when you feel very passionately about a project, you can become very intense and that doesn’t necessarily always lead to the greatest productivity on a team. Or they can say like, no, that’s whack. Like just ignore that person and move on. Yes. Hearing someone else say, ignore that person and move on is actually for me a much more expedient way to do that than to rely on myself.

Stephanie Everett (24:21):

Yeah, no, I it’s true. And as you were saying that I immediately was picturing a couple of people in my life. And, and honestly, in my role as a business coach, I, I do that for people because, because I know a lot of, and a lot of our listeners, like I think what shows up mostly for us at work is as a boss, right? So we’re women leaders, a lot of times owning our own companies. And there’s this, I idea that you want your team to like you, you want to build a culture. We we’re so intentional now about the types of cultures we’re building on our team and we’re trying to do it differently. And we’re trying to bring wellness and balance and all of these things into the picture. And then you have to make a hard decision. You have to let someone go or, or you have to give someone that feedback that feels more critical. Although my guest a couple weeks ago said all feedback is a gift. So I’ll acknowledge that and say, yes, I’m working on it, but right, you have to, you have these moments that just, and, and you’re like, Ugh, I have to do this thing.

Alicia Menendez (25:22):

I have to do this thing, which is, I thought Mindy Grossman, who had been the CEO had done a turnaround effort at home shopping network. I interviewed for the likeability trap. Believe she’s when I was interviewing her. She was at weight Watchers. I believe she’s still there. And she talked about the time at home shopping network, a turnaround is never easy and she had to separate employees out and just sort of like who was like a lifer and was in it, who was gonna get a test period and who just needed to be out. And the greatest thing that she learned from that period was you need to be clear with people about what the vision and the path forward is and why the hard decisions had to be made. Right? Like there’s always that why a question that follows and if you are clear and you’re clear about the way that those things line up, you have no control over whether or not people will like those decisions and like you as the messenger in delivering them. But it allows you to have something to go back to say, you know, instead of asking yourself, did they like me? As I said that, no, they didn’t like you fired them, but were, you know, were, were you honest? Were you clear? Were you Faire? That is something that you can have a lot more control over.

Stephanie Everett (26:36):

Yeah. I have that story bookmark right here on page 171 in the book highlighted.

Alicia Menendez (26:42):

I love being in the company of fellow nerds.

Stephanie Everett (26:45):

Yes. I was like, oh yes, here it is. This is great.

Alicia Menendez (26:48):

So

Stephanie Everett (26:49):

Maybe as we wrap up and first I’m gonna share a quick story. So I have a daughter she’s a month from being 11. So she’ll probably just, she would probably say she’s 11 now, even though she’s got a month. And so last weekend, just the two of went to dinner, it was super lovely because her, her dad wasn’t feeling up to it. So I was like, yeah, let’s do it. And we went to hibachi. That’s what she picked. So we’re at the, you know, the table and they’re making dinner. And she brought her book and I brought mine cuz it was Valentine’s weekend. And we weren’t sure how long the wait was gonna be. So I had your book with me and I was just fascinated. So I, I told her, I was like, Hey, I’m reading this book and this is what it’s about. And it was so interesting cuz her, she just looked at me straight in the face and said, mom, I’d rather people think I’m smart than like me. And I was like, ah, I should listen to my 11 year old more often,

Alicia Menendez (27:36):

But that she, I just feel like there’s a, Shive into my heart because I’m like, how do we preserve that? Right? Like I don’t wanna put her in a glass cage, but I also do. And this is why I wanna be honest. There were actually a lot of people who were like, why didn’t you do this as a parenting book? And it’s like, because I’m not sure that parents alone can changes. Of course you’re gonna raise like a strong, smart girl who knows what her value is, but also gonna send her into a world that still will tell her that she is too much or she is too little. And that is why that to me is what needs to be reckoned with.

Stephanie Everett (28:11):

Yeah. Yeah. Because in this quote, in the book, you said, if you knew you had to choose between being interesting and being universal universally likable, you know, which would you choose? And the question is so great because interesting. I think you would agree means flawed. Right? Interesting means showing up in your true, authentic self, whatever that looks like. It may be messy hair one day. It maybe mean or direct. I mean, not mean cuz means not the right word, but like I often get, sometimes I’m very direct. And so sometimes it gets interpreted as I, you know, mean, I don’t think I’m intentionally mean to people. I care about people so much, but sometimes I’m just on point I’m just in business mode. Right. I just gotta go. I have getting it done. Yeah. I have 17 calls today and five projects to finish. Let’s do this. So I have to like stop and be like, how are you today? How’s it going? Like, I, I’m not good at the small talk in the middle of the day because I don’t have time for it. And so that’s my authentic, flawed self.

Alicia Menendez (29:11):

But actually that, that leads me to something which is, I think you and I are about the same age. And as, as you get a little bit older, you start to realize that those idiosyncrasies, you can actually sort of say out loud and listen, I, I, I know you didn’t mean to use the word mean because it’s true. Like everyone should be sort of kind like you can be direct and be kind. And that it’s just more that we don’t expect women to be direct. So that’s actually the res probably more often the response that you’re getting, you know, like I’m not giving anyone permission to be a jerk. That’s not it either. But I, I do think I’ve come to, to express to people I work with, like when I’m focused on a project, it is really hard for me to pull away Chicha.

Alicia Menendez (29:47):

And that does not mean that I wouldn’t love to talk to you at another time, but like this is me managing myself and managing my time and I’ve have found even those caveats sometimes help make it less personal. Yeah. And that’s become especially true as I’ve become a mom where it’s like, I gotta get outta here. I’m like working on the margins of time. So like I have to do this and be done. And and I’m so sorry if that doesn’t built in some of the time that you would like to, to develop this relationship.

Stephanie Everett (30:14):

Yeah. Awesome.

Alicia Menendez (30:16):

Is it awesome? Is it awesome that you and I like I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta get the work.

Stephanie Everett (30:20):

No, I be. And I think it’s awesome that we can be honest and maybe it is a little bit with age and maybe my daughter’s the example of people are gonna get there quicker now. Right. Cuz it took me a lot of years to realize I can say those things and it’s okay. And maybe someone won’t will like me a little less, but I’ll get by. Maybe that’s the whole point.

Stephanie Everett (30:42):

Love it. I know. I feel like this was part interview part therapy for Stephanie. So thanks to everyone for

Alicia Menendez (30:47):

No, thank you. What a treat.

Stephanie Everett (30:50):

Yeah. It’s been so great talking to you. If people haven’t grabbed the book yet they should. It’s the likeability trap, how to break free and succeed as you are. I just really appreciate you. Just I think just talking a about it, right. Is the first step.

Alicia Menendez (31:03):

You know, the funkiest thing about being a person who’s written a book about likeability is then reading the reviews where you you’re like I did a lot of work to care less about this and there’s still someone in Atlanta who’s very upset either that her book showed up with like marks on it, right where I’m like, oh, you’re reviewing a product. I forgot that you’re or reviewing the content of this or just, you know, I felt the problem needed to be articulated before I could move to solutions. And I do think that one of the things I recognize in the process of writing likeability to trap was we’ve really conditioned women to get to the tips and the tricks. Like we wanna believe that if we just had the right tips and tricks that we could change anything, our hair, our lot in life, like our romantic relationships. And it’s like, what if actually just the entire system is rigged against you? Like what if there is no tip or trick that is gonna work you out of this? And what you actually need to do is like have a really clear articulation of what the problem is. There are a lot of people who reviewed it, who didn’t like that. They’re like, where are the tips and the tricks.

Stephanie Everett (32:08):

I know. I mean, it’s kind of why I didn’t ask you about any cuz I’m like, this is just the work that we have to do, but that’s the start.

Alicia Menendez (32:16):

I still, I still gave you one. That was just a bonus. That was just got it in there.

Stephanie Everett (32:19):

I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on with us today. I really enjoyed this conversation and you’re just lovely to hang out with. I feel like, I feel like we could be friends.

Alicia Menendez (32:30):

We would would for sure. No chit chat. Just deep talk.

Stephanie Everett (32:34):

I love it.

Announcer (32:37):

The Lawyerist Podcast is edited by Britany Felix. Are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First. If you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet? Grab the first chapter for free at lawyeristbackup.kinsta.cloud/book. Looking for help beyond the book? Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities, right for you. Head to lawyeristbackup.kinsta.cloud/community/lab to schedule a 10 minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.