Episode Notes

Have you considered moving abroad full time? Have you wondered what it would take to make that a reality? Lawyerist Lab Coach Bernadette Harris moved herself and her business to Mexico and today she shares her journey with Stephanie. They discuss why, how, the challenges, and the surprising health benefits that came along with the decision.  

Links from the episode:

Trust Bernadette 

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  • 15:22. Perspective of Conversion
  • 21:53. The Hardest Part of the Journey
  • 27:15. What Does Life Look Like Now?

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04): 

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. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:35): 

Hi, I’m Stephanie Everett. 

  

Ashley Steckler (00:36): 

And I’m Ashley Steckler. And this is episode 432 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Stephanie interviews our lab coach Bernadette, about moving her business and her life to Mexico. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:50): 

Today’s show is brought to you by Posh Virtual Receptionists, Clio, & Gavel. We wouldn’t be able to do the show without their support, so stay tuned because we’re going to tell you more about them later on. 

  

Ashley Steckler (01:01): 

So Stephanie, our new book is out. It’s released. It’s in print. 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:07): 

Yay. It’s beautiful. I’m so excited. It’s, it’s a labor of love when you see that and then you also get scared because you’re like, oh, what typo or what mistake is somebody going to find? 

  

Ashley Steckler (01:19): 

Yes. Going over and over and over and over. It again. It does. It looks great. It’s highly revised. There’s some new structure, a new way to think about it. We’ve got some shifts happening in the book. 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:34): 

Yeah, for sure. We included a forward where Erin and I sort of set out why we decided now was the right time to do a second version and to give a little preview of what’s changed and why, what the differences are. Good news, both the forward and the introduction are available on our website. You can read those for free without buying the book. And I do think it gives you a good lens into what we’re doing with this new addition, which really is more than just changing a few sentences. A lot of the concepts are the same, but it really is a whole new book. And like you said, part of that is around this idea of a healthy law firm. So a few years ago when we rebranded Lawyerist, we also introduced the concept of a healthy firm and what are the components of a healthy firm. And that’s really now how the book is structured. And of course, it’s a great tie in to today’s talk with Bernadette because the last part of having a healthy business is a healthy owner. I mean, really, it’s the first part too. It’s a circle because they’re all interrelated, no steps, but certainly what’s the point if we’re killing ourselves to do it? 

  

Ashley Steckler (02:47): 

Yeah, absolutely. And so thinking through, when we have all of those pieces balanced and aligned, those also support a healthy owner. 

  

Stephanie Everett (02:58): 

And so I think today’s story is a good one. I love what Bernadette did with her life and how she built a business that allowed her to do it, and now she’s able to run her business from a new place. So check it out. I think it just captures a big part of what we’re trying to convey in the book is that there’s news ways to do this and it’s really fun and exciting and healthy and I don’t know, isn’t that what it should all be about? 

  

Ashley Steckler (03:24): 

Yeah. I can’t wait to hear how she decided what that looks like for her, because it’s very exciting. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:31): 

So without further ado, here’s my conversation with Bernadette. 

  

Bernadette Harris (03:38): 

So, hey, I’m Bernadette Harris. I’m the finance coach here at Lawyerist. And as always, I am always excited when I get to come back to be a guest on the podcast. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:49): 

And we are excited to talk to you because you have some big news that you get to finally share with the world. 

  

Bernadette Harris (03:55): 

Yes. It’s been a huge secret for way too long, but I left the United States. 

  

Stephanie Everett (04:06): 

So you’re living in Mexico now? 

  

Bernadette Harris (04:08): 

So I am living in Mexico and have been living in Mexico at this time, about seven months. And it’s been an adventure. We’ll definitely talk about all of that and more. Yeah, 

  

Stephanie Everett (04:22): 

And I mean, I’m so excited to talk about this and I love this story and I love that you did it. So let me take you back to when did this first even become an idea that you thought, take us back to why you decided to move and what was some of the thoughts behind making this big change? 

  

Bernadette Harris (04:41): 

So I was that person who was spending Sundays watching House Hunters, House Hunters International, my Mexico Life, all of those shows on hd TV. I’m not a big TV person, but I need HD T v because I was watching all the shows and it was something in the back of my mind, probably now for the last 10 years, at some point I want to not necessarily retire because I don’t really see my personality really fitting the whole retired model. But at some point I want to live in another country just so that I can slow down. So that’s probably the first entrance in my mind. Every time I go on vacation, I’m always thinking, could I live here? Could I live here? But in 2021, March of 2021, so about a year after the pandemic, I got diagnosed with hypertension. And this was a huge wake up call for me. 

  

(05:42): 

Well, let me take that back because initially it was a wake up call, but it wasn’t big enough because I didn’t do anything immediately. Oh, just I’m going to be honest about that. But leading up to that, the pandemic was stressful for everyone in multiple ways, for multiple reasons. And for me, being an accountant, the pandemic was stressful because it forced tax compliance. So we got this huge influx of people who needed to file tax returns so they could get stimulus checks or they needed to get financials done so that they could get E I D L or whatever. It was just all of these things, the economic development that came from Covid and Covid Relief all kind of pointed back to us as accountants. And so we got slammed. So we did not have the period of time where we were sitting at home figuring out how we’re going to remodel our living room or any of that kind of stuff. 

  

(06:40): 

We were just slammed at work. So I think for me, with the additional demands that was on my life and my business, which were good for the bank account, but it was not good for my health because I wasn’t eating. I was sitting down all day long, 15 hours a day, just not good. So the diagnosis came in March, 2021, and I thought, oh God, I have to take medication. That felt like the worst thing to me. I got to take medication, but I did, and I kind of pushed through and got through tax season because I had to get through tax season. I couldn’t not get through tax season, or at least I thought. And then the tax season got extended and it was just so much, there was so pressure on me. And I think at some point about September of 2021, I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. 

  

(07:39): 

I literally thought I was going to lose it. And I know Stephanie, you and I have had conversations through and I’m just like, oh my gosh, this is so much. Just trying to juggle all of these different things. I have to slow down. I have to pull back. I have to say no to some stuff. And so Mexico still wasn’t on my mind in September, but I was like, I got to get some help. I got to do something. I started going to therapy and working with a counselor just to just figure out how do I manage the stress? How do I set boundaries, all of these different things. And by February of 2022, I thought, yeah, these boundaries that I’m setting there, they’re kind of helping. But no, they’re not. I really need something else. I need to move. I need to live somewhere where it costs me a little bit less to live. 

  

(08:32): 

I can step back for my business and take care of myself and not have to change my lifestyle significantly. Because I mean, who wants to work really hard to build to a certain level, 20 years into your business to have to go back to eating beans? Nobody really wants to do that. So I started researching and I was researching how, I don’t know, I had no idea where I was going to go. Mexico was not the top of my list, but I knew I didn’t want to go too far. Cause my daughter lives in the States. My parents live in the States, and if anything ever happened and I needed to get home really quickly, I didn’t want to be flying for two days. Right? Yeah. So that’s the backstory of when I decided I need to make a change. I need to do something different. 

  

Stephanie Everett (09:29): 

I am sure everything you just described, so many people listening right now had those thoughts, have had that experience. And I think a lot of times, I mean, I’ve had the thought in my head that nothing’s going to change unless I make a big move. It sometimes feels hard. It’s really easy for us to say, just make small changes just, and for some people that really seems to work and other people need a big shift. And that’s what I’m hearing is that you tried some of the little things and it still really wasn’t getting you where you needed to be. And so in order to really pull back and stop doing part of the business mean now you kind of cut off one of the income streams from your business. You were doing tax prep and you as part of this, you said, I don’t want to do this type of work anymore. 

  

(10:17): 

Really stressful in killing me, but I got to realign things because in order to not have that income, I’m going to and still not eat beans. Like you said, I got to make a big shift. And I just want to applaud that because it is hard to do. And I think there’s lots of people who are probably listening right now saying, that sounds great, and I know I need to do it. And then here come all the things they’re going to tell themselves why they could never do it, why it wouldn’t work for them, why all the things. That’s what we do. And I just want to acknowledge that you probably had some of those thoughts as well, and you did it anyway. 

  

Bernadette Harris (10:55): 

Yeah, and I also did not tell a lot of people because I didn’t need anybody reminding me of the scary things. Yeah. Because it was scary and it was a huge risk. And honestly, seven months in, I sometimes have days where I’m like, what the hell did you do? But on those days, I promise every day that I get a little scared or I wonder if I did the right thing. Then I get a new opportunity that is very much in line with the new direction that I’m going in. And it’s always, always confirmation that I made the right to decision in making that shift. And I’m not even afraid to talk numbers a little bit, but my tax prep business was a six figure line of business. So I’m saying that because there’s some lawyer that’s listening and they’re saying, I can’t do this because this is a huge line of my business. 

  

(11:57): 

So for the last two to three years, I’ve been wanting to shift away. So that tax prep wasn’t such a large percentage of my business, and I have been doing the things to create different lines of business and the increase, I know the I’m count, I know the percentages to the T, but we’re not going to talk about that. But my goal was to get tax prep so that it was less than 50% of my income so that when I do take this pay cut, it’s not a 50% pay cut, but it was going to be significant. So I had been working, even though I didn’t know that I would be leaving the country, I had been working to get tax prep to where it was not the largest percentage of my income. And I can remember a time when tax prep was probably 70% of my income, which I would not have been able to do that when it was that high. 

  

(12:52): 

But the efforts that I have been making to make that switch also help with that. So for some people, it may not be something, oh, I’m going to do this in six months. But it is something conscious that you’re doing to say, what are some of the things that you can do to shift in your practice so that your focus is on the parts of your practice that you really enjoy and you can get away from the stuff because we’re all taking, at some point in our business, we all took clients that we just didn’t want to work with, but you have a mortgage, so you kind of take those clients. So making that shift and just saying, okay, bro, I’m going to cut this whole line of income. It was hard. 

  

Stephanie Everett (13:37): 

Yeah, 

  

Bernadette Harris (13:37): 

That was really hard. One, making the decision. The decision was easy. Let me say that the decision was easy, and when I said it out of my mouth, I felt something that I hadn’t felt before. The hard part was executing the decision, 

  

Stephanie Everett (13:54): 

Right? 

  

Bernadette Harris (13:54): 

Because now I have to tell 300 people or almost 400 people, I can’t work with you anymore. 

  

Stephanie Everett (14:02): 

Yeah, I know that was hard, but I bet when that final conversation was over, you also felt something. It was pretty amazing. Okay. But I did it. 

  

Bernadette Harris (14:11): 

I did it. I did it. Yeah. That was the hardest part. I mean, even moving to Mexico was not easy. We’ll probably talk about some of that, but the hardest part was really just going, having to go and have that hard conversation with clients and say, Hey, we’re not doing tax prep anymore. 

  

Stephanie Everett (14:31): 

So I guess a little bit of a process question, if you’re kind of willing to share. So it sounds like, you know, knew something had a change for your health, your livelihood, knowing you being a numbers person, because I realize you hadn’t really settled on Mexico at that point, or I guess had you, because I just am thinking of myself as I’m, I would be sitting there thinking, okay, I’m going to lose. I’m forego not lose. I’m going to say no to this amount of income, so then I’m going to have to live off this budget. And then do you go say, where in the world can I live off of this budget? Or did you go look for a place and say that’s what a budget living here would look like? What would my business need to do to support that? I’m kind of curious about a little bit of a chicken and egg there. Which approach did you take? Because I know you’re a numbers numbers person. Yeah. 

  

Bernadette Harris (15:22): 

So it was more so I thought about it from the perspective of conversion. I knew that I would be continuing to earn income in the United States. And so I was thinking, where is the US dollar strong? Where is it where I can move? And a dollar in the United States will go a lot further than the local currency. That was a part of the thought process. So again, narrowing in down in looking at conversion rates and then looking at close proximity because I’m looking like, how am I going to get back if I need to go to Maryland to see my daughter? How will I get there? How long is that flight if I need to go to South Florida to see my dad or Atlanta to see my mom? What does that look like? And so that was the only part of the process. And even with me being a numbers person and always kind of knowing the numbers, some of this stuff I didn’t know. I totally, totally took a leap, but I knew from my research and everything else that I would be able to save. Not necessarily in my case, I wasn’t saving money per month, but it was live on less. And that was the whole goal. So when I said, yep, I’m getting out of here, I need to go live somewhere where I could live on less. Got it. And I knew that Mexico was going, was going to be that place. 

  

Stephanie Everett (16:44): 

And then how long did you spend researching potential places? I mean, I suppose you got narrowed in on countries and areas pretty quick because of that flight parameter, which makes a lot of sense. But then I know me, and so my husband has, we have also gone down this road before we’ve, we got real close to thinking about this. It was called a gentleman’s coffee farm in Ecuador, which sounds, it just sounds great. Yes. What? I don’t know what that is. And I don’t know how to be a coffee farmer, but I want to do that. So I guess I’m just kind of curious, how long did you spend in that research process in terms of weeks or months? Because I feel like I could get myself trapped there for a long time. 

  

Bernadette Harris (17:26): 

And I am totally the opposite. I am the person that I cannot plan something a year from now. People who plan weddings two years out, I’m amazed at that. I’m not that person. It’s like, we’re getting married. All right, let’s do it in two months. <laugh> that person. So essentially when I decide that I’m going to do something, I research it really hard and I make a fast decision. And it’s kind of difficult to have friendships and relationships with other people because most people don’t operate like that. And I am not always as patient. But for me, I started researching in February. I think I spent more time researching than I was doing taxes in February. Bad me, but I was researching in February. I made a decision of my country in February. I got my Visa in March, and I left in April. 

  

Stephanie Everett (18:26): 

<laugh>. All right, well, there you go. See? So that’s pretty fast, mean. I love it. All right, we got to take a break and hear from our sponsors when we come back. We’re going to talk a little bit more about the transition to Mexico and what that’s been like. 

  

Speaker 5 (18:42): 

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(19:29): 

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(20:31): 

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Stephanie Everett (21:16): 

All right, I’m back with Bernadette. She decided in February she needed to move, and by April you’re in another country. That’s pretty amazing. 

  

Bernadette Harris (21:26): 

So I left at the end of April, went on vacation because I already had a vacation planned, went on vacation. And from vacation I went to Mexico. So I landed in Mexico in May. So Okay, if that helps a little with the timeline. 

  

Stephanie Everett (21:39): 

Well, I don’t know. I mean, you just said you went from vacation to your new home and at the beach basically in Mexico. Yeah, it’s okay. All right. What’s been the hardest part so far of the journey? 

  

Bernadette Harris (21:53): 

The hardest part? The hardest part probably is that I don’t speak Spanish. 

  

Stephanie Everett (22:00): 

That might surprise people that you chose to move to a Spanish speaking country. Are you picking it up? 

  

Bernadette Harris (22:06): 

And I don’t speak Spanish. I am, I’m learning a little bit and I’m looking at classes, so I’m going to, I tried to do one-on-one lessons, but it didn’t work for my learning style. So I think going to a class and interacting with other people is going to be better for me. I actually just emailed a company that does classes here, so I’m going to take a class. But even that being the hardest thing, it hasn’t been terrible because people are very helpful and accommodating. Even if they don’t speak English, they will pull out Google Translate and I pull out Google Translate. And so Google Translate has been my crutch and it’s probably made me not as swift to get in a Spanish class because I’ve been able to get by without knowing Spanish. But that’s probably been the hardest thing. Now there have been challenges and there are things like that I miss from the United States that I don’t have here, but it’s been more good than bad. A lot more good than bad. 

  

Stephanie Everett (23:11): 

All right. We’ll tackle some of those. What do you miss? What’s on that list? 

  

Bernadette Harris (23:15): 

I do have a list. I miss Target, <laugh>. I miss Target. I miss Chick-fil-A. 

  

Stephanie Everett (23:23): 

Fair. 

  

Bernadette Harris (23:24): 

I miss TJ Max and Marshalls and Home Goods. They don’t have stores like that, but those are all places that would make me spend more money and they don’t necessarily fit into my new healthy lifestyle. So I’m okay. 

  

Stephanie Everett (23:44): 

Yeah. What has kind of surprised you the most about the change? 

  

Bernadette Harris (23:48): 

I did hear that where I live is hot. I didn’t realize that it was hot every single day. And I think that was one of the things that I didn’t consider. I know Mexico is hot, I know where it is on the map and all of that, but I mean, it’s not terrible hot. I’ve definitely gotten used to it being hot, but cold here is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s cold. I mean, people are like, there’s severe weather warnings, <laugh> when that cold. So I remember when we had some 65 degree weather and I thought, oh my gosh, I was able to sleep with my bedroom, has a balcony. So I was able to open my balcony door and just sleep with the door crack and not turn on the air conditioning. It was great. 

  

Stephanie Everett (24:47): 

And rugs, you were telling me you can’t really like everything’s tile because of the heat and humidity and it molds. 

  

Bernadette Harris (24:55): 

Yeah. So no, there’s no carpet. My entire apartment is tile. And let me tell you when that became a huge problem. If you saw my LinkedIn post about my, I did it jar, well, my jar fell on the ground and broke <laugh> cause it’s tile. So thankfully I bought two jars, so I still have one, but I bought two because I thought, oh, my year is going to be so great. I need two jars. And so I’m like, yeah. So that’s a time when this tile thing doesn’t necessarily kind of work out. But yeah, because of the humidity here, there’s no carpet, so you can get throw rugs if you want. I have rugs. I have a few throw rugs that rugs that I had in the States, but no carpet, all tile, and I have a lot of glass. I didn’t use plastic containers to store food. I have glass containers, so I’m super, super, super careful. I can’t break these. So 

  

Stephanie Everett (25:56): 

Differences, just things you don’t always think of or 

  

Bernadette Harris (25:59): 

Appreciate you don’t think about and things or things that you just take for granted. I’m like my doors, the bedroom doors, the closet doors, things like that. They’re all made of this really heavy wood. And again, it’s because of the humidity, because other types of wood or the wrong type of wood can rot here. So thankfully I have really good furniture. My desk and everything is made out of real wood and it’s not like that fake stuff because I don’t think it would make you here. 

  

Stephanie Everett (26:29): 

Yeah. Tell me about how has your life really changed because all of this kind of was predicated on a medical issue and realizing your stress level and your health and that you wanted to make a change. I mean, in two months basically you made the change. Kudos to you. I mean, I say that with all the love in my heart because I’m impressed. So what does life look like now for you? And we’ll share in a minute. You’re sharing a lot of this on videos and on social, so we can follow along. You have a whole bunch of videos on even everything from how you found your apartment and how you got your visa, all the things that everybody probably wants me to ask, but I don’t have time to ask. So I’m going to go with my fun questions, but, but what does life look like now? What? What’s happened? 

  

Bernadette Harris (27:15): 

It’s definitely been a change just so health wise, I’ve lost 30 pounds. Amazing. So I was overweight when I got here, so I lost 30 pounds, and I’ve been able to get my blood pressure under control. So that that’s something that’s good. My therapist is very happy with me because I’m working through some things that I needed to work on. And even work wise, there is a lot more balance. I’ve been working a four, well, I’ve had four day offices, hours, four years, but now I’m actually sticking to it. So the office is closed on Fridays and I’m actually not working on Fridays. And so I take Fridays to either do self-care stuff, I may go to the beach or just do something just for myself that sometimes it’s going to the doctor, but whatever the case is, those are kind of my wellness days, days that I’m looking at kind of taking care of myself. 

  

(28:20): 

And it’s just been a huge, huge change. Food here is so much fresher, I found. So one of the things that I didn’t recognize this, it took me a while, but even when I bought meat here, if I buy chicken or something like that, I kept saying, wow, it’s so salty because of the seasonings that I would put on my food in the United States. The meat is so fresh that it doesn’t need as much seasoning as I was using. And I think that’s also helped with the blood pressure and all that kind of stuff and the weight loss or whatever. So for a minute I just kept saying, oh man, I put too much on here. But what I realized is I was putting the same amount that I was putting on the food when I was in the United States, but the food is just very, very different. I went to a market one time, this kind of gross me out a little bit, but I’m going to tell it. So I went to this market one time and they actually had like, fresh chickens just hanging. Yeah, 

  

Stephanie Everett (29:27): 

Yeah. 

  

Bernadette Harris (29:29): 

So 

  

Stephanie Everett (29:30): 

You pluck. 

  

Bernadette Harris (29:31): 

Yeah, I mean the only thing that they did, and I have feathers, but the whole thing, and they had these really sharp knives and they were like, wack, wack, wack, wack, whack. You want chicken wings? Okay, here you go. Yeah, I got some chicken. It was really fresh and it was <laugh>, but I was kind of grossed out when he was cutting my chicken wings. There was a chicken head next to it. So 

  

Stephanie Everett (29:58): 

Yeah, I could see that. I don’t even know where to go after that one. 

  

Bernadette Harris (30:05): 

But stuff like that is, those are some of the things that are kind of different. Good. So fresh vegetables, fresh fruit. I love mangoes. I grew up in South Florida, and so I grew up eating mangoes as a kid all summer long. And every time I go to visit my family in south Florida, I’m like, you got any mangos? And so when I first moved here, it was mango season and I was able to get fresh mangoes every single week go to, they call it the fruit terra and go to the fruit terra, and it’s just a little fruit stand. It’s not that big. And you can get fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, but you can’t buy too many because they’ll spoil because they get, yeah, they’re so fresh. And I learned that lesson too because I bought too much food one time because I was being a little pig. 

  

Stephanie Everett (30:57): 

So I mean, I guess I know this, but we should just clarify. I mean, you’re still running your business. You had basically created a virtual business before you had left. So you still have your US based business. That’s what you’re doing every day. You’re able to do it virtually. And that also impacted what kind of visa you had to get, which was interesting. 

  

Bernadette Harris (31:17): 

Yeah, so like you said, I’m still running my business. I’ve been in business for 21 years, and I went virtual almost 10 years ago. Yeah. Had no idea why I was going virtual or whatever. And so I had been virtual for July of 2023 will make 10 years that I was virtual. So my clients didn’t see me anyway. So when I left, nobody knew, because we always did stuff on Zoom anyway. It’s like, oh, you changed your office. That was kind of the whole thing. And I think I used the virtual background for a little while, but so those things never changed. And like you said, the visa that I have, so I’m a temporary resident in the state of Mexico, and I got a temporary residency based on the fact that I have income to support myself while I’m here. So I’m not coming here to find a job or find income. So that was showing that I had salary from my company and all of that kind of stuff is what helped me to be able to get my visa. 

  

Stephanie Everett (32:20): 

So what would you tell someone as we wrap this up that maybe they’ve been thinking about it, maybe they’ve kind of had that idea in their head, but it seemed to all the things fill in the blank. What would you tell that person? 

  

Bernadette Harris (32:35): 

I would say just be, it is very possible. I recognize that I am an overachiever. I recognize that I do stuff fast and so you don’t necessarily have to do what I did or the timeline that I did it on, but everything that I did to get here is duplicatable. I wish that it was because I was so super smart or super connected or whatever. It was just a commitment to just make this change. And so be open minded and then trust that you can do it too. 

  

Stephanie Everett (33:12): 

Yeah, I love it. And then tell us where people, we’ll put the link in the show notes, but you have some videos that you’re doing where you’re sort of explaining this process and just sharing all the fun things. And I was checking them out because you like when heard a band the other night, so there’s all kinds of stuff. I love it. It’s just been so fun to watch your journey. But where do we go to find that? 

  

Bernadette Harris (33:34): 

So my YouTube channel is Trust Bernadette, and on the YouTube channel there’s a playlist. That’s just my expat journey. So if you just wanted to see, I mean there are counting videos on there too, but if you just want to see, or if you’re interested in the expat journey, I kind of walk you through. So I’ve done videos that, again, I announced it on YouTube, and so the announcement video got the most views. I think it got like 1100 views at this present time. So people were like, you are aware, but I announced it on YouTube and I’ve just kind of been chronically my journal. And so I talk about healthcare, I talk about all of those kinds of, and it is just been a lot of stuff that we just don’t have time to talk about today. But you can check out those videos there and just see if it’s something interesting, even if it’s not Mexico that you’re thinking about. Those videos are helpful because it helps you to understand some of the things, some of the things that I did as far as purging my house and things like that, and getting my Visa and doing all those different things 

  

Stephanie Everett (34:39): 

And just living a healthy life. I mean, our listeners don’t see you, but you are absolutely glowing. Thank you. Have been for months. I mean, I notice kudos to you. I can see the difference in how you appear, how you look, but just also your presence, how you show up and you just exude joy, which you always have, but it’s just this new, fresh, 

  

Bernadette Harris (35:03): 

It’s different. 

  

Stephanie Everett (35:04): 

Yeah, it’s just this, 

  

Bernadette Harris (35:05): 

I definitely, I don’t feel the same when I think about when we started working together and I think some crazy stuff was happening when we were getting <laugh>, when were onboarding me with Lawyerist, and so I just think about how crazy life was and how I had to show up in the craziness and just be who I needed to be at that particular time. But to now be able to show up minus the craziness is very nice. Very nice. 

  

Stephanie Everett (35:37): 

Congrats. I love it. That’s a great place to end. We’ll have you back for more numbers stuff, but this was super fun. 

  

Bernadette Harris (35:43): 

Absolutely. Thanks for having me again. 

  

Speaker 1 (35:47): 

The Lawyerist podcast is edited by Brittany 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 Lawyerist dot com slash book, looking for help beyond the book. Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities are right for you. Head to Lawyerist dot com slash community slash 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. 

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Stephanie Everett

Stephanie Everett is the Chief Growth Officer and Lead Business Coach of Lawyerist. She is the co-author of the bestselling book The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited and co-host of the weekly Lawyerist Podcast.

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Bernadette Harris Headshot

Bernadette Harris

Bernadette Harris started her first business in 1998 and never looked back. With a background in accounting, business strategy, speaking and fraud forensics, Bernadette has helped countless businesses grow and become even more successful. Her ultimate goal is to see fewer businesses fail. She has written three bestselling books where she focuses on business strategy, preventing fraud, employees/vendors, and more. Her specialties include tax and forensic accounting, entrepreneurship, speaking, and fraud prevention.

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Last updated June 18th, 2024