#227: Confidence and Making Time with Judith Gaton

Dina (00:00):
Hello. Hello, How are you today? Today I want to introduce you to my new friend, Judith Gaton. She is smart, she's sassy, and she has a fashion sense. She also happens to be a former managing partner turned style coach. In our conversation, we talk exactly how she shifted from litigator to coach while practicing full time.

Dina (00:55):
As you know, I made the same shift, and that means we talk time management, mind management, and trying new things. We also talk about our first impression of coaching when we were introduced to it. It may not be what you expect. And one of my favorite parts of this conversation is how you can show up as your most authentic self, even at the office or in court. Before we jump in, I wanna tell you something. Last week I was thinking about my email subscribers and how I could help them create the change that they want in their life. And I came up with something so simple, so easy that it even blew my mind. And at once, I sent them an email letting them know what it was. And the response has been amazing. I can't wait to share this with you. I wanna offer it to you too.

Dina (01:49):
If you have ever wished that you could implement what you are learning here on the podcast in a way that was really easy, but you've always thought, Well, you know what? It's just too hard, it's too much, and I just don't have time. I want you to join me for this. It's called Awareness and Action starting October 3rd, 2022. If you're listening to this in the future, you will get brief morning emails from me for two weeks, Monday through Friday. They're gonna hit your inbox at 4:00 AM Pacific. So early risers on the East coast can read them before work. And in each email, I'm gonna offer you one thing to pay attention to that day. And one thing that you can do later, it's gonna be a set of questions that you can ask yourself to explore deeper. This is a mini course in shifting how you think and how you feel each and every day.

Dina (02:46):
It's simple and doable. And by the end, you'll not only have more awareness of what you may be tolerating in your life, but you will have tools to help you change. Plus, you're gonna get unlimited access to me via email. And that means you can ask for clarifications, you can ask for help working through a question. You can ask for a mini coaching right over email. And I will respond personally, How much am I charging for this? Nothing. Why I am doing this to show you the power of coaching and how simple it is to make change in your life. Change is accessible. My clients do it all the time. They get more personalized attention and a fuller experience every week. But I wanna give you a taste of it. You can join me for awareness and action by going to dinacataldo.com/awareness. You're gonna get an introductory email and then you're gonna get the two weeks of emails after that.

Dina (03:56):
Now, if you are hearing this podcast episode after October 3rd, you can still sign up. You just won't get the same kind of email access to me. You may get them on different days. And just a heads up, I may decide to charge for this in the future, so I might remove it from the the website. So you might wanna get on this as soon as possible. You wanna get on this as soon as you hear this episode because this is not something that people do. Like I don't think I've ever heard of anybody doing this in the coaching space. So I want you to get the benefit of this while it is up and accessible right now. So go to dinacataldo.com/awareness to start implementing what you're learning on the podcast in an easy to digest way. Okay, now one more thing.

Dina (04:48):
Invite your friends, tell them about this. Why would you hoard this? Why would you keep this to yourself? If you are doing this, how amazing would it be for you to have somebody share this experience with you and you can even exchange notes like this would be such the perfect opportunity for you to share coaching, experience this change experience, this awareness experience with them. So share the link, dinacataldo.com/awareness or share this episode so that they know what this is all about. Okay, now here's my conversation with Judith Gaton. You can go to the show notes dinacataldo.com/227 to get all the links for what we talk about. I'm gonna make sure that I link to everything there. Enjoy.

Dina (05:32):
Judith. I am so glad that you're here today.

Judith (05:37):
I'm so glad too. And we had a precursor chat a few weeks ago, so I've been like, I'm gonna talk to my girl today. We're gonna have fun little party in the podcast room.

Dina (05:47):
This is gonna be, this is just gonna be such a fun episode. And I love the personality you bring, like I found you through Instagram and the life coach school and I was just like, I love her personality and I think she would be so much fun to have a chat with on the podcast for everybody to hear.

Judith (06:05):
Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.

Dina (06:07):
Can you just start by introducing yourself to who's listening?

Judith (06:11):
Yeah. So I'm Judith Gaton. I'm a master certified coach and I'm a personal stylist. So altogether, I like to say like master style coach or style coach. And I'm a former managing partner, . I was an 11 year litigator before I stopped full-time practice and now I'm a full-time coach.

Dina (06:32):
There was something that came up for me when we were having that conversation and so often I've heard this to me, told to me too, it's like, how did you do that? Like how did you go from this identity as this high powered litigator and then decide you wanted to become style coach? Like how did you navigate that?

Judith (06:57):
Yeah, I, I mean it didn't happen all at once. , I think it's funny, right? When we have these stories where we made this huge identity shift or this big change and then people get to hear the end diversion. I mean this was, I mean, anybody who's coached me for a gazillion years, this was a journey of like, let's see, do do do. I'm trying to do math in my head. Lawyers don't do math, right? That's kind of the running joke amongst us all. Um, so I first met my coach in 2016 and I was highly skeptical when I found coaching. I thought it was rubbish and bs. And I had a client, we were in high profile litigation, um, a big divorce and suddenly she said she wanted to be a life coach. And I was like, Absolutely not. That is made up. And she had already even given an admonition in terms of like, you need to find employment.

Judith (07:42):
And I remember just being like, that is not a real job. Like being really upset. So I went to Pinterest to search out what the hell that was. Which is funny because there's probably part of me that didn't really wanna know because why didn't I go to Google? I went to Pinterest. I think it's so funny. And then I found my coach and she introduced me to the idea that I can choose what I think and that my thoughts create my feelings and for my feelings I take action. And I pulled fellow attorneys and I was like, Does that sound right? Like set logic.

Judith (08:15):
I started a transformation. You know, I didn't finally, um, resign from practice until, what year are we in 2021? June 30th, 2021. And even then it was a three month process. I mean, when you're managing partner, you don't just leave. That's not the cool thing to do. And right. My partners were so amazing, incredible. And they told me, If you ever need anything we're your safety net. I was like, Hey, my parents are worried. And they're like, We'll write you a letter that you can give to your parents to let them know we've got you just in cases. Which again, it's like unheard of amazingness, right? But they probably saw it coming. I knew it was coming. This was years in the making and it was a slow transition sometimes Painful transition. Yeah. But something I would totally do all over again.

Dina (09:06):
Yeah. What was the pain?

Judith (09:08):
The pain was just the weight of expectations, right? So I'm Latin by descent, I'm Puerto Rican and I was the first one in my family to obtain a doctoral degree. And you know, all these hopes and expectations and I don't even know that my family would've articulated it that way. My mom's always been like, You do you baby. It was, you know, other members in my family who have put a lot of stake in what they had to say in just like, what will people think? Yeah. And I have this serious job that I get to like loudly pronounce when someone asks me what I do and now I have to tell them I'm a coach. And like that was, that just felt so weird because even I still had my like, I mean this is some made up. Like it's some cool made up and it helps people's lives but also some mad, right? Like this is a profession that didn't exist at in its current form for, you know, centuries like a lawyer,

Dina (10:05):
Right? So prestigious.

Judith (10:08):
So that was the painful part was just I felt the weight of expectations, my, the weight of what I perceived other people were thinking, even if they didn't say it. You know, the weight of having to announce this new profession. And did I believe in myself enough to declare it just as proudly as I did when I was an attorney? Yeah.

Dina (10:28):
Those were all the same pains I had. Just fyi,

Judith (10:33):
We're in a good boat.

Dina (10:36):
I'm not of Latin descent, but I had the same thoughts that was just like, okay, my parents are gonna think I'm crazy. Everybody in my office is gonna think I'm nuts. Like what? They probably still think I'm nuts and that's okay cause this is that. Right? I'm enjoying my life. So

Judith (10:53):
Overheard my, the like my aunt, I was, they thought I was asleep. She's talking to my mom, they're like whispering, right? This is last weekend. And my aunt's like, Does she like it? Can she pay her bills? Like is it good? And my mom was like, She's really happy. It's good. But what does she doing exactly .

Dina (11:10):
I know.

Judith (11:13):
Like, I mean I'm almost 40. I could announce that I'm awake, but I've enjoying this way too much.

Dina (11:18):
. Right? It's so funny cuz when I first learned about coaching, it was through Tony Robbins and he had like this coaching program and I'm like, I'm not even really sure what you do. Like I just, what do I call this person? And they like tell me things like what happens? And I was just like, look, my life, it just feels like a mess. I just need to go in and like try something, anything. And then it turned out it was them asking me what I wanted and like asking me questions and I had to think and it was like, it was like, oh, so this is amazing, but I've never heard of this before. Yeah. Um, so that was, it took, it took some time for me to, to understand that too was it felt like a crap shoot when I, when I joined that I was like,

Judith (12:04):
Well yeah, I think it's like I've tried everything. I'm in therapy. This is supposed to,

Dina (12:09):
We, something's gotta help here. I don't know. Um, they seem pretty happy what's happening. Um, but tell me, now that you are a life coach, tell us exactly what you do and who you help.

Judith (12:22):
Yeah, so I help high achieving women and the entry point in my coaching is style. So I like to think of styles kinda like the beautiful ground floor. Like we're gonna get you dressed and ready for the world outside your closet. Most women, especially the smart cookies and high achievers that I work with, they are very successful, right in their own right. They have pieces of paper, they have the career, they have experience and they run things. They're the face of things. But no one's ever talked to them about the style stuff. So it's kind of like, it feels like this weird missing ingredient for them. Like, I'm so smart, why can't I figure this part out? And we kinda like to say like, you figured out your career but not your closet. yeah, we're gonna help you with the closet part. But I think the beautiful thing about coaching style is I think it's a beautiful conduit to someone's heart and mind, particularly women especially if they've been told like, hey, disconnect from your body, disconnect from your emotions. You know, Beto being a toon, like there's no crying and you know, trial, there is no crying in baseball kind of attitude. Like just go be smart. You don't have to worry about being pretty or taking care of yourself or learning about any of those things.

Dina (13:36):
You know? That's so fascinating cuz as you were saying that, what popped into my head there was this um, trial attorney I worked with and she was fabulous. She had multiple interests outside of trial, right? Like she was doing kickboxing classes, She was like running for office in her county outside of our county at the DA's office. And she dressed to the nines. She looked so good, right? Like she had herself, you know, made up beautiful outfit, tailored beautiful shoes. She was very fit kickboxer, right? And people in the office, I mean, you could just kind of tell, it was just kind of like, oh, like she's, she's like dressing up too much, right? Like what, what is the right amount of too much? Like there's people who dress up and there's people who don't dress up and then she would tell stories. I remember her telling me something about um, she was in front of a trial and after the jury was released, like some of the jurors were like saying things like, I don't know, like your clothing is just so distracting. Like they were .

Judith (14:39):
Oh my goodness. Cute. Oh my gosh. .

Dina (14:44):
So tell me about like if you've had the, those kinds of experiences or if you've heard those kinds of stories. Because I thought it was absolutely ridiculous because the quality of your argument does not shift based upon the outfit that you're wearing. So ,

Judith (14:57):
I mean, and luckily in my practice area I appeared in, we did, there were no jury trials. So it was only with a judge. It's technically administrative law. Cause I did worker's compensation defense. Um, we were in trial very often, but our trials just were more wild west . Right. And I came from a civil litigation background, which was extremely formal. So I remember my first worker's compensation trial and I asked the judge, um, I was proffering evidence for admission and then I asked if I could approach to show it to the witness once the judge had taken a look at you. I was like, Oh wow. Okay, hold on. Did you do civil? Like that was, I mean it was beautifully done but also wow. You could have just like asked me if like you could come up

Judith (15:39):
And like there's no technical. Well so like you wouldn't, you wouldn't stand. It was just, it was so awkward because I came from this like super formal trial background and I had appeared in federal court where the well is giant. Right? Right. So I remember just being like, this is so weird. This is the wild west. But because there's a little bit looser formality, there is definitely formality and procedure, but it's a lot looser. I was able to show up more often as myself in terms of finally like wearing a red vintage lip and doing my hair more vintage style and dressing more vintage style more often. Now again, this is a process over time cause I had to acclimate my own brain to people looking and commenting and saying things and wanting to touch my hair, which I still think is such a strange human inclination to go touch strangers hair. Mm-hmm . And my judges got used to seeing me this way. So it didn't matter that opposing counsel would be like, what the hell is happening or you see like, you know, just, you know, plaintiff in those cases, um, what we call applicant, which is like side eye like you're the defense attorney. Like I'm the defense attorney. I was like are you the court reporter? Ah, no, I'm not the court reporter. I'm Defense counsel.

Judith (16:55):
Oh. Oh are you the interpreter? No ma'am. I am not the interpreter. Um, we'll wait for them to arrive.

Dina (17:02):
No, the lawyers aren't supposed to look attractive.

Judith (17:06):
We're apparently, we're not so female defense attorneys in particular. We are just not permitted. It's not allowed. And I, yeah, I mean the comments I get and I, some of them I enjoyed I have to say because it was like you clearly no idea what else to say. So this is what's gonna come out of your mouth. Right. And I'm cool with it. , I was about to go to trial was one of my opponents. Just nice gentlemen. We had 5 million cases together cuz as the nature of that kind of practice. And it was waiting for me so he could yell at me and I was wearing a fabulous blue coat and had this great little blue handbag to match. I had like very Jackie O'Hare that day. . It was almost just army. Cause he just looked through me. He's like the ever fabulous, oh Ms. Hoover is my actual married name. And he was like, Okay, what do you wanna do? It was like, I think he was like geared up to like have a fight, you know? And I just looked just too fabulous for me to say those things.

Judith (17:58):
I can't be mean to you. Look at you, you look like a doll. Okay, come on .

Dina (18:02):
You know, I'm super curious, how do you work with your clients to really start connecting them with who they want to dress up as? Right? Like who they wanna show up as every single day. Because there might be a disconnect between, you know, I just want super easy, let me put on the first thing I see in my closet versus like, you know, I really do wanna wear sparkles. I think sparkles would be fun. Like how do you help them make that shift?

Judith (18:30):
Yeah. So oh a few things, and this is kind of important. We talk about style as a conduit to your heart and mind, right? So I think the beautiful thing is we get to play with introducing women to the concept of listening to their own voice. That their opinion matters most to stop pulling the room to see if they're okay, if they're all right, if they're allowed to proceed forward and really tuning into their own preferences again. So style's a fun way to do that because chances are there are things you already like that you're just not allowing yourself to enjoy. Yeah. Right. A sparkly finger polish. Um, a really great hoodie. If that's your jam, we're gonna find you the best hoodie in the world. If you really love good athletic wear and that's what you live in, then we're gonna find you that version.

Judith (19:16):
I have clients who dress full beautiful suiting and silk blouse and silk scarves and that's their jam, right? But the key is finally allowing yourself to admit what you like and to let go of anything you've told you should wear that you have to do that you actually don't love. Mm-hmm . And then there's a layer for some of us that there are particular protocols in terms of how we're supposed to appear, right? So there are still rules and if I'm just gonna use an a lawyerly example, no clothes toed shoes. I had some judges who were very adamant about that They would not permit you to appear in front of them. You would have to get a continuance, you have to wear a jacket sometimes even if you run hot and it's 118 degrees outside and you have your wool jacket on . I mean even if you have to ask leave of court, which I've done on many occasion, like Your Honor may remove my coat. Yes, you may wear a girl, right? But you have to go in though with it on your closed toed shoes because those are certain rules and procedures of the profession. Doctors have to wear closed toed shoes often they have to wear a white lab coat if they're not, you know, different days. So we still wanna work within in those parameters, but there's so much room to play when you finally admit to yourself like, what do I love?

Dina (20:36):
Yeah, I think that's really a question that I work with on my clients too is just what do you want? Like what is it that you like, what is it that you enjoy? Cause so many, many of us don't have those answers when we first start and we get discouraged, we start to think like, oh maybe I just don't know. So how do you kind of help them peel back that layer so that they can begin giving you and giving themselves those answers?

Judith (21:02):
Yeah, so one of the things I encourage 'em to do and in my current membership, they're doing it as well. So in my eight week program, it's part of the homework of the first week is you take a picture of yourself, full body head to toe. Unless you've had a history of um, eating disorders or body dysmorphia, in which case we have different things we do. But for my folks who don't have those issues a picture every day, full body of, and if you can like think it's like for me to like fashion police them, I have no interest in that. I love them. I don't care what they're wearing frankly. I mean I prefer they wear clothes, you know, except to them. Um, but really so they can start to see themselves because naturally your brain will start to change things subtly. It will recognize when things are ill fitting in a way that you had never really thought of before.

Judith (21:49):
Like it creates this weird level of objectivity. So I have one client, she's like, You've ruined this shirt for me. Like I didn't do anything. She's like, it's huge. And she's very petite, lovely woman. And she was wearing probably four sizes too big and she just saw herself fine. Like really looked at herself and was like, I'm drowning in my clothes. Why am I doing that? Oh, I'm trying to hide my belly but there's nothing wrong with my belly. And like then we get all the coaching stuff that pops up for them and we recognize it. There are certain things that she actually prefers. She loves a great little trouser and she loves a great little blouse with her trouser. She actually hates t-shirts and she's not a huge fan of soup jackets. . Like now we have all this information because we started to finally pay attention.

Dina (22:37):
Mm. Yeah.

Judith (22:38):
And many of us are like so tuned out from our bodies and we're like, I wanna make over. I'm like, okay, let's pay attention to you for a week. Like really careful, loving attention. And then we can start the process and they're like, well just gimme the list of stuff to buy. I'm like, I could do that to you and you could buy all that and still be in the same position a week later. I won't do that to you. Yeah. My goal is like for you to really tune in again to yourself so that we can find that what you actually wear normally, what you actually like, what your lifestyle needs you to wear. And then we can layer all the fun flare stuff, but we have to pay attention to you. Again, this is about your relationship with yourself ultimately.

Dina (23:14):
Yeah. I love how you phrase that. It's, it's really giving that loving attention to yourself cuz we give so much judgment to ourselves. We're give, we're judging ourselves all day long how we didn't do this right and we didn't do that right. And how I hate my body and how I hate the clothes that I have and I have nothing to wear. And we just like, we pile on all this judgment bit, we forget like, oh wait a minute, all of this is optional. Like I get to just kind of stand back and take a look objectively and see what it is I like in my life and maybe what I, I wanna change and do it with like so much compassion for ourselves instead of being so mean to ourselves. Right. About everything going on.

Judith (23:54):
Yeah. I mean, and part of what I tell my clients is if you notice you're zooming into a particular part of your body, some part of your face, like teaching them the phrase zoom out, I'm a whole human, zoom out. I have a whole body zoom out. I'm not like a boob walking around or belly walking around. I'm a whole human being because I think right when we finally do pay attention to ourselves, our natural inclination is to just start nitpicking. That's not what we're doing . So it's a loving dooming in very, very loving paying attention.

Dina (24:25):
Yeah. And if, if you're listening to this and you're like, what the heck? Like it takes practice. It's not an overnight thing. Like this is something that is just every day you just say something a little bit nicer to yourself . And you are just like, Oh wait a minute. I notice how I'm being mean to myself and my hair or how I'm thinking about my nose today or my skin today. And it's like, wait a minute, I am really perfect just as I am. Like everything about me tells a story. Everything about me is a part of me and I can love every part of myself even if I don't have the hips that I want or the belly that I want or whatever it is. It's like that's okay. Like I can be perfect as is and I can make shifts to create what I want.

Judith (25:14):
Absolutely. We don't even have to practice love, body love first. Like if we're not there, it could just be something as like, this is a human body.

Dina (25:22):
Yeah.

Judith (25:24):
I'm in a human body. I got my human body

Judith (25:28):
Doesn't even have to be like jump to love because for some of us, if we are coming from self loing or really having a hard time with body image, that's a hard sell. So we can take that off the table and just like less mean things perfectly.

Dina (25:44):
Yeah, yeah. That's a great point because it's such a process for a lot of us. Like those little steps are so meaningful just to make it neutral. So we're just not being so mean to ourselves. I love that. All right, so this is what I, I wanted to also talk to you about is you were a full on managing partner at your firm and you built a whole other business on top of that. I did the same thing in my practice. So I am like, I love your story because I think it gives people opportunities to see themselves in a new light. So many of us say we don't have enough time that we just can't. And I'm curious about more about your story, if you could tell that for the listeners.

Judith (26:34):
Yeah. So I mean, I didn't start full out with a full time practice, right? Again, don't, when you hear someone, the end of someone's story, we wanna make sure like you ask some questions. And I love that you ask this question too, like what was the beginning of this look like? How did you get to that place? So I started with just a commitment of an hour in the evening, like rain or shine, whether it was the end of the month billing or trial preparation time, an hour. It was like, you can find an hour. And I mean sometimes those were very sleepy hours. They were not the most productive hours sometimes they were like on fire kind of hours where I got a lot done. Like, but the hour with Sac saying it had to get done. And then I was like, okay, we have more than an hour.

Judith (27:19):
We've got like two. Like if we know that we really have like two, you can do two and you can start, you can do on Saturdays as well. Like find the time on a Saturday morning, just crank it out and then your whole day's yours. And here's the interesting thing, the more I was very careful with creating boundaries in my legal profession and the more I created cons in terms of like, this is the amount of time I've allotted to this particular thing, whether it was research or brief writing or having a conversation or answering emails like that was the time that it was allotted. So better get it done because at x time we were done for the day and we will switch gears to working on our coaching practice. I mean, at first I didn't have any clients so I, it felt like all this luxurious time, right? I could create content and freebies and do my podcasts and like, you know, take an hour to edit my podcast. Now that I find that laughable because my podcast is like eight minutes long right now. I'm just like, I don't even edit.

Dina (28:20):
Yeah, you're you're, you have a nice format where it's just like boom, boom, boom.

Judith (28:25):
But I was like, why was it taking me an hour? I have questions.

Dina (28:28):
Like your podcast real quick, let's make sure they know it exists.

Judith (28:33):
We'll pause for a podcast hug. My podcast is a style masterclass podcast episodes are about eight to 12 minutes long. They're very, very actionable, very bingeable. Um, but really, I mean then it was kind of funny. So the more organized I got as a lawyer, then the more time I had for my coaching practice and then the more organized I was in my coaching practice, I was so efficient. And it was funny, the first few months when I had stopped practice, I was kind of wondering around my house cuz I was like, well what do I do with myself? Like if I'm not billing about 14 hours a day, which is my typical billables as an attorney, Like what do we, what do we, what do humans do? Do they like go to lunch?

Dina (29:15):
Humans? Yes. They have lunch and they don't do it at their desk. Right?

Judith (29:18):
I was like, oh, take a nap. Like it a few. I was like, you know that you could schedule things after 10:00 AM right? And you could like end your day at like three if you wanted. Like, I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. ,

Dina (29:38):
Right?

Judith (29:39):
Yeah. But like, it, it was a progression of when I organized my legal work and I created boundaries there, freed up space for me to consider this other, the other parts of my life and to do the other things that I enjoy. So sometimes, you know, I would prefer to just sew all weekend. And because I had created so much space in my legal work in terms of how I conducted myself there very efficiently, it freed up space to find all these other passions and loves and to learn about things and to go to conferences. And eventually it became, you know, two hours during the weekday basically all day Saturday coaching. And then I hit a time period, um, like April, 2020 where it was like, okay, , I'm gonna start losing money on both sides if I don't sort out what my next steps are because I'm an amazing litigator. I was still getting what we call take nothings, which is like you win at trial, the other party doesn't take anything in terms of your insurer doesn't pay anything out because of a myriad of reasons. I handled a lot of fraud cases. So typically it was attributed to fraud. We, we will give you nothing because you've committed fraud . Um, and oh my God, I have so many fun stories. I won't bore your listeners, but oh, the fraud cases are just really people really, really…

Dina (31:05):
You can't make this stuff up. I mean we can take a a diversion here, right? Like, I mean I loved criminal law for that reason is because you could not make up the stories whether it was the defendant's side or the victim side and like, they're not all, like when I talk about these cases, they're not all like homicides that I'm talking about or domestic violence. A lot of times there are these neighbor squabbles that you deal with, like at the misdemeanor level, sometimes felony level, right? Like it is just, you don't even wanna know. Like there's fights over lawn mowers and you're like, what is happening? Like it was a line, why are they fighting over the line in the lawn?

Judith (31:43):
Mean, right. All kinds of stuff like that. Like, I mean, and I would love, one of my favorite things to do, and maybe this is wrong, but we, we knew it was fraud because we had other evidence close in time that indicated the person was hurt at some other place doing some other thing. So I'd be like, Well, can you demonstrate for me like how it happened? And they'd be like, Yeah. And they're like, do this whole reenactment and be like, do it again . Ah, I, one time the judge was like, That's enough. I was like, No, but I wanna see. Cause that was, it changed slightly the second time. Did you see that? I mean, we would just laugh cause I mean really, bro. Really, really. And then I had people who were extremely injured who what we call catastrophic claims and they were genuinely injured and that's a whole other kind of litigation.

Judith (32:27):
So I mean, you see both sides of it, but at a certain point it was like, I'm gonna have to figure out where I wanna be and how can I affect the most change in the world. And my dear friend Maggie Reyes, who's an brilliant, amazing, love her freaking love me some Maggie, I always give her a shout over my kid love me some Maggie . She was like the last person in a very long line of coaches who had coached me on this particular topic. And I don't know how we came to, but basically she kind of lovingly gently said like, you know, that you could like affect more change as a coach.

Judith (33:03):
And I don't think it ever really dawned on me. And I'm not really sure what particular order of words she said, but that was the message I got. And I was just like, oh, here it is. Now here's, here's the shift. And I remember there were a few cases that were really difficult. The litigation had gotten sideways. We'll just say things had gotten interesting and um, I prayed and I remember just like, okay, when I wrap these up, that will be the sign. And one of 'em I thought was totally gonna wrap up. And like things do at mediation, people got mad at each other. And when you have excess carrier involves, you know, sometimes you don't have control over things. And everybody got mad and everybody walked away and nobody was talking to each other. And I was like, Oh, you get back to the table, I have a plan. People, you're messing up my plan.

Judith (33:51):
You're messing my plan. I let it lie. And I just was like, it is what it is. You know, maybe that's our son. This is what we said. Right? So, and I'm not usually that way, but this was very important to me that I see, I saw these particular set of things through to conclusion and I remember opposing counsel calls and was like, We're ready to come to the table. And it was like this weird piece around it and it happened so fluidly after all that horrible contention. And rightfully so I think on both sides, everyone had rightfully so decided to walk away from the table and regroup the troops. And when that wrapped up and I turned the settlement paperwork in and even the judge was like, Oh yeah, we settlement. Like, we were all like dance party in chambers. And I remember just thinking like, and now we're done.

Judith (34:35):
Like that chapter is like beautifully closed in the way that I could never have even fathom that that would close so beautifully. And then I was on a really big podcast and things really blew up and I told my, my supervising partner, right? So like, there's all kinds of cheers. So basically the guy over me, um, who I love and adore and is so supportive, I told him like, this is what's happening in my world. This is what has come, I'm about to be, it's it is gonna blow up and we need to plan for my exit. And he's like, Oh, I'm so bummed, but I'm so proud of you. But I'm so about . And for three months we lovingly informed clients. We just had, we created this beautiful landing in place where everybody felt good about where they were going, who was gonna handle their files, the young attorneys that I was in charge of, like let them know that I was still available if they needed. So like we did it in such a loving, kind way. But it was a process. And there were moments where I cried, of course I was like, they're gonna miss you guys. But then it was like, I'm not gonna miss practice per se. Like I miss this sort of adrenaline rush of trial. I'm not gonna lie, I totally miss that sometimes, but I miss the humans view. Were really intelligent, amazing humans. And then I was like, wait, oh, I could just call you and still go to lunch. Oh, I'm gonna be fine.

Dina (35:59):
. Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean I hope that, you know, for everyone listening they can hear it wasn't just okay, one day I just decided I was gonna leave. It was all right, let me try something new. Let me give myself just a little bit of space to try something new and then I'll try some other things. But I'm always gonna make sure that I carve out that little bit of time for me and that way I can think about what I want and then just take some actions on it. And that snowballs. And I think we miss the big picture of like the compound effect of that over time and how we change the way we think, the way we approach our practice, the way we approach our time. For me, I noticed that when I started giving myself that little bit of time to start thinking, cuz it was, my story's kind of similar to yours, like in the sense that I created that time for myself, I noticed that I was better able and I was more motivated to change the way I thought about my time in my law practice because I wanted that time to work on my business.

Dina (37:03):
I wanted that time for me. And so if I hadn't decided like, yes, I want this time for me, I don't know that I would've changed anything else in my practice.

Judith (37:12):
Oh, I agree. I agree. I think it was a crazy amazing motivator. Like, okay, do you wanna be the last month of the last week of the month? Right? Sometimes if you're in a billing cycle, and I know that in the DA's office you didn't have to bill, but for those in like big law where you do have to bill, right? Are you gonna wait till the last week and drive yourself crazy? And then hobbies, self care, or all of it goes out the window, or are we gonna have like organized time from week one through week four of the month taking care of everything we gotta take care of? Even we don't wanna do, we don't feel like it. So that when it comes to our weekends or our evenings, our time really is our own.

Dina (37:53):
Yeah. Mm. This is so good. I love all of this. Okay, I want to kind of start wrapping things up here because I think I, we've touched on some really great topics, but I wanted to mention something that I saw on your website that I loved, and one of the things that you say is confident women change the world and leave legacies. I'm really curious what you want your legacy to be.

Judith (38:22):
Oh, that gave me chills, . I mean, I have a really big vision for what I would want in the future. And I mean, talk about doing 1% every day basically to create something big. I had an idea seven years ago that I wrote on a piece of paper and it was called Modern Charm School. And I circled it and I was like, I don't know what this is. It made me amazing, whatever it is, whenever it comes to fruition. And the idea at the time, and I'm very visual and I think that's part of just how my brain works. I was like thinking of like this amazing vintage mansion building where all these women come in and we help them to have a makeover. I, I really do think there's something magical about a makeover woman having that magic moment where she like brings in the mirror and does a little twirl.

Judith (39:08):
Like there's something about that, right? Or a little dance or like, yeah, look good, right? Like there's something about that. But then I started to think about like, what do the other floors of this building look like? So if we get you to the second floor and you're, you're feeling good in how you show up in the world, meaning like aesthetically, but also physically, your clothes are comfortable, all those things are in place and you have this relationship developed with yourself or like, I'm gonna be kind to myself, I'm gonna take care of myself, I'm gonna listen to my own voice and my own needs and wants. By the time we get to the second floor, which to me is like the floor on wealth generation or just thinking about money when we enter into conversations about money or we're thinking about our future and our financial legacy or literacy.

Judith (39:55):
You are coming from such a different space if you already have this established relationship and rapport with yourself. Mm. Yeah. And then when we get to the third floor, which is, you know about gumption and leading with initiative and determination and courage, again, we have this really established foundation with yourself, but also sometimes things take means, and that's the reality of the world that we live in. And then by the time we get to the very top floor, we talk about legacy. I love to think of legacy very expansively. Yes, I would love to leave a pot of money to some humans to do amazing things with absolutely. But I also want to leave behind a legacy of self love and self kindness and confidence and really have like teaching women how to have an amazing relationship with themselves. So that ripples out into all the communities that they end.

Judith (40:48):
Like my legacy, I want to be the ripple effect that I shared information with one heart, one mind at a time, and she showed up differently to all the places that she shows up. And she modeled that behavior for someone else who modeled it for someone else, who modeled it for someone else, who modeled it for somebody else. So I like to think of myself as like the little bit of a rock and the large ripple effect that I won't even fully understand or see the effects of, which is amazing. And I think the cool thing is I don't have to reach a million women at once right now. I could reach one woman's heart and mind and then she'll show up differently. And that that's a legacy of wisdom and kindness and all those things. Like that's, that's what I wanna leave. Mm.

Dina (41:32):
I love that vision. That's so beautiful. Okay, is there anything that you want to share? We're gonna talk about all the amazing ways they can connect with you in a minute, but is there anything else that you wanna share that we really haven't touched on in this podcast that you'd like to make sure they know?

Judith (41:50):
I have a really, we touched so much ground, but I think there's like a theme running here, right? So I think part of it is like just listening to your own, like voice in your own head. Again, not the mean one , but the one that has like a longing to do something. The one that actually would prefer Chinese versus Mexican food tonight. And you are normally the one who defers to like, Oh, I don't care. No, you actually really do care. Can you tell us what you care about? Like those little tiny preferences that we think are insignificant or silly to voice practice giving voice to them so that when it comes to something larger or more import to you, you already have the habit and practice of giving voice to what you actually think and prefer.

Dina (42:31):
Yes. I love that so much. Okay, Judah, this has been a fabulous conversation. I knew it would be, and I would love it if you would share with everyone how best that they can connect with you. And I will be sure to put links in the show notes to everything you mention.

Judith (42:49):
Yeah. So we already plugged my podcast,

Dina (42:52):
Which is fabulous. Go listen to it. You're a podcaster, you listen, I know you like podcasts.

Judith (42:58):
Yes. It's perfect, right? So definitely you can start finding your way into my world by listening to Style master class podcast. You can also go to my website, judithgaton.com and find out all the ways that you can work with me, whether that's in small groups or in modern charm school, which is now a thing in existence that I worked on very slowly for seven

Dina (43:19):
Years. Seven years. Guys listen to that. Like she had an idea seven years ago, don't give up on those little nuggets that somehow drop in your lap and you're like, What do I do with this? Like, just take note of it. The universe has given you a gift and just like hold on to it and just see what happens.

Judith (43:35):
Yeah. Like, and circle it on a piece of paper and who knows when you'll come back to it's, It's incredible actually. So you can come hang out with me and I'm the members in there and we have an incredible time. There's lots of high achieving women in there who are doing style stuff, money stuff, Morgan on legacy stuff. We have a good time inside.

Dina (43:53):
Awesome. All right then. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it and I'm glad I we got to have this conversation. Me

Judith (44:02):
Too. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you listener for listening.

Dina (44:05):
Wasn't Judith great? You can get all of the goodies that we talked about dinacataldo.com/227.

Dina (44:14):
Now I wanna share with you something that I think about sometimes when I think about the power of coaching. And Judith shared this, and I share this all the time on this podcast. And I want to let you know what my clients experience when they work with me. Because the support that they receive to create the life that they want is something that cannot be measured. They create these connections with their family, with their loved ones that they were unable to create before coaching because work took over. They are able to reestablish connection to themselves in a way that they hadn't for years because they didn't have the mind management tools to shift out of work and into asking themselves what they wanted and giving it to themselves.

Dina (45:15):
They're able to do things like establish a family, really do the things that they want, really have the opportunity to create a family. I had one client who I actually coached her in a session and it changed the way she thought about creating a family. And then she went on to create her and her husband a baby. It's amazing what can be accomplished when you have the support that you need. I wanna offer this to you because this kind of support is essential if we want to do big things. And my clients are able to do the big scary things because they have the support to help them do it. They do it themselves, they do the work, but they get the mind management tools and they get someone who is experienced in helping them achieve what it is that they want because they've helped.

Dina (46:15):
I've helped other people do it. I have the tools to help people do it, and I wanna help you do it too. So if when you hear my podcast, it resonates with you, that's not a coincidence. It means that there's something there for you. And if you wanna explore what there might be there for you working with me, I wanna invite you to book a consult. You can go to dina cataldo.com/strategy session to book a call with me. And during our call, we will go through what is happening in your life right now. Where are the disconnections? Where are the areas where you're not giving yourself the support that you need? What do you want? And we're gonna actually look at details of what it is that you want. Even if you feel confused right now and you don't really know what it is that you want, you just know that there's something there.

Dina (47:13):
I wanna help you get there. And I will help create clarity on our strategy session, on our consult so that you can get what you need. Whether or not you decide that you wanna work with me or not, you are gonna know for sure what it is you need. So book a call with me, go to dina cataldo.com/strategy session if this is resonating with you because there's no point in denying yourself what it is that you want and the support that you need. And I'm here for you. All right my friend. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I will talk to you soon. Bye for now.

And before we jump into today's episode on how to talk to yourself to achieve your goals, I want to share with you a lot that's going on right now that you might wanna take part in.

So, first thing I wanna remind you of is that if you haven't heard, I am doing a calendar masterclass for lawyers next Thursday, and it is the calendar masterclass for lawyers who wanna have a life it's called Bye-Bye Burnout: How to Create Boundaries, End Procrastination and Release Perfectionism to make your life easier. And you can sign up on the website at https://dinacataldo.com/calendarmasterclass. And if you can't show up live that's okay. I will be making a replay available for those who sign up. The next thing I wanna make sure you know about is that I have created a brand new resource page and what's really brand new on it.

Are these playlists there's Spotify playlists that I created for be a better lawyer podcast that talk about time management, building a book of business, relationships, money, mindset, stress management, confidence building. So go to Dina, cataldo.com and you will find the resources tab up top. And there you will find all of the playlists I've laid out as well as links to other resources, other master classes, the busy lawyers guide everything that you need to make your life easier.

And if you have more questions, you can always find me on Instagram. I'm @Dina.Cataldo. You can DM me. I've been doing some of those. Ask me anything days where I just answer questions. So feel free to ask me questions and I won't answer your questions anonymously. So no, one's gonna know that you're asking me these questions. Don't worry about it. So you can go to @Dina.Cataldo and DM me there.

And finally, right, one last thing I wanna make sure you know about I'm gonna be at Cleo conference in October in Nashville. So if you are going there, I'm gonna have a kiosk. It's gonna be promoting, be a better lawyer podcast, come over. I'm gonna have some cool free things I'm gonna be giving away. And I want to just invite as many people as possible to learn about this podcast, to make their lives better. And if you have friends that are gonna be there, bring 'em on over, I'm gonna make you at home. Maybe you'll even end up on a podcast episode who knows, like, we'll just see where the conversation goes. I just wanna get to know you. So if you are going to ClioCon come on over and we will have a chat. All right. Okay.

So let's talk about how to talk to yourself.

And it's so funny, cuz when I originally decided to do this episode, there's just so many connotations that come with talking to ourselves. So many people think it's crazy, right? But it is the absolute best way to help us redirect our mind over and over again to our goals. It just is. I have learned this over the years, I've practiced it over and over again. And it is really, really helpful. But most of us talk to ourselves like crap <laugh> and we do not talk to ourselves in a way that's very helpful. That is why achieving our goals feels so hard is we are hard on ourselves. We are always more judgmental of ourselves than we are of anyone else. And we make our lives difficult when we talk to ourselves horribly. And I know this firsthand because I too have talked to myself horribly and the more I've practiced talking to myself in a way that I would talk to my best friend, the easier hitting my goals has become the easier my life has felt.

And I wanna offer to you this practice because chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you wanna better yourselves. Hence the name be a better lawyer podcast, right? But when we are in that desire of wanting to better ourselves, we often forget that we're a human being who has feelings. And every thought that we have generates a feeling. And if we're generating lots of thoughts that are judgemental and harsh, we are gonna be feeling pressure and shame and those feelings then go on to generate our actions. And we can take a lot of action pushing through shame, but we will never be able to take clean action, like massive action. Like I talked a couple episodes ago, we will not be able to take that kind of action if we are in shame or disappointment or we feel pressured. And that's why I wanna offer to you this practice, learning how to talk to yourself, to hit goals.

And also, you know, I, I think of like hitting goals as how much money you wanna make in your practice. But I also think of goals as creating a new practice area, building a business, managing your time, having relationships that you enjoy coming home to those are also goals. So keep those in mind. If you come to these, these episodes with the idea of just building your practice, you can also use the technique I'm sharing with you to better every single area of your life. And if you notice what I'm gonna share with you today, if you notice your thoughts and you recognize your feelings, then you're going to be able to start making some shifts in the way that you talk to yourself and you'll be able to make those areas of your life even better. They're gonna feel so much easier. So let me start with just noticing how you talk to yourself. Okay? We talk to ourselves all the time. We have about 60,000 thoughts every single day. Most of them are on repeat.

And if you notice throughout your day, the feelings, which is what I would notice most is how I felt. If I felt anxiety, if I felt impatient, frustrated, anger, those kinds of feelings. If you're noticing those, that is a sign that how you're speaking to yourself is not helpful. Let me give you an example. One great tool is having a relationship with another human being so that you can see your brain. So if you're at the office and you notice yourself becoming impatient with somebody else, notice what's happening in your body, right? You're probably feeling tense. You want them to hurry up. You want them to like get out of your office, right? Think about this or you wish you would, they would just get it right. They would understand what you're trying to tell them faster. So you, they weren't wasting your time. Those are a bunch of thoughts that you might be having.

But also notice that those thoughts are judging them. You're thinking that they should be doing something differently than they are should is the big keyword to tell you that you're judging something. Now, if you are feeling impatient, this is a great opportunity for you to reflect on how you are impatient with yourself. Where do you think you should be behaving differently? These relationships we have with other people on the planet are so amazing because we get an opportunity to notice when we are impatient. When we are frustrated, when we are judgmental and we start to see that reflected back to us in ways where we are impatient with ourselves, where we are judgmental of ourselves. When we get frustrated with ourselves, where in your life is that happening? I guarantee you, if you are feeling any of those feelings towards somebody else, you are definitely feeling them towards yourself in one or more areas of your life.

What are they do? You get frustrated when you don't get as much work done during the day as you wanted to do you become angry with yourself when you are taking too long on a project. So you say to yourself, do you become impatient with yourself? When you aren't doing things on your calendar that you said you were gonna do? There's so many ways that this shows up. It can even show up at home, right? Do you get frustrated with yourself? Because you snapped at your partner again, do you become upset with yourself? Do you shame yourself? You judge yourself because you snapped at your partner, you yelled at them. You said something that you didn't really mean, like ask yourself where these things may be showing up for yourself. And then when those things show up for yourself, how are you talking to yourself?

And that's where the thoughts and the awareness of the thoughts comes in. Because when we are impatient with ourselves, we're not gonna be very nice to ourselves. We're usually going. The very first reaction is going to be, you should have done that better. You should have behaved differently. You should have fill in the blank, whatever behavior it is that you wish you had done differently. You're going to tell yourself that you are somehow defective for having not done it that way. That's how most of us talk to ourselves. That's the default. But when you start to learn how to talk to yourself so that you can achieve the results that you want, you're going to recognize that you're judging yourself, recognize that there's a sentence in your head that is saying you should have behaved differently. And then say, wait a minute, hold on. Let's press pause on that thought because all of our thoughts are optional. They may feel a hundred percent true in the moment you may think to yourself, I should have talked to my partner differently. I should have done everything on my calendar today. I should have billed more hours. Those thoughts may seem and feel very true. And you might even look at your bill billing hours and you might be like, yeah, I needed to get those eight hours done today in order to hit my goal a hundred percent. That was a fact.

But even if the sentence in our head is a fact how we talk to ourselves about that sentence in our head is going to determine how we show up for ourselves in the future. I want you to picture a river. Okay. It flows in one direction. You have your point a wherever you are right now, right? Let's say you got two hours of billables today and your goal was eight. Okay. And then there's point B point B are more days where you're hitting your hours consistently. The river is what flows between point a and point B. The direction of the flow is always gonna be towards point B, but you're in a boat. Okay? That's your brain. And your brain is in this boat. And sometimes it goes towards point B, you think, oh yeah, I, today I'm focused. I'm gonna get those eight hours today.

And sometimes your boat turns around and it says, Nope, there's no way I'm gonna do this. I'm horrible at this. I don't know what I'm doing. And the boat's gonna turn around and it's gonna go back towards point a and it's gonna go against the flow. So everything's gonna feel really hard. Like, oh, I only got two hours today. That wasn't enough. It goes towards point a. You're not making it more likely that you're gonna get to your point B where you're consistently billing the hours that you want, because you're not thinking thoughts, like, okay, I didn't hit them today, but how can I make sure that I hit them tomorrow? Like what, what happened today? Where I didn't hit them? What was going on and getting really curious with ourselves and being very kind to ourselves versus judging ourselves and telling ourselves that we're bad, cuz we didn't hit those two hours and how we're never gonna do it.

Because when you start questioning those thoughts, the ones that keep pointing you back to point a, keep spinning the boat around, moving against the current, you start questioning those thoughts. The boat starts to turn towards point B. It starts to flow with the current. And the great news is here is you don't have to flow with the current a hundred percent of the time. You could do it 60% of the time, 50% of the time. And you're gonna get closer to point B. But what most of us do is we never question the thoughts. And 95% of the time we're flowing, we're not flowing. We're moving against current and staying stuck point a. But what we've gotta do is we've gotta recognize the thoughts that we're having that are keeping us stuck in point a and then start turning the boat around to let the current take us closer to where we wanna go.

And that this is what it would look like in that particular situation. You notice you're having thoughts. I only got two hours done today. Never gonna do this. This is just so hard. It's just, everything feels heavy. I just don't know what I'm doing. And I hear, I hear this. So I know that some of you are talking to yourselves like this, notice the thoughts. They even feel heavy in your body. Like an anchor, sinking you to the bottom of that river. They feel like shame and disappointment and those feelings are, what's gonna weigh you down and they're not gonna help you move the boat. So rather than judging yourself and telling yourself you're bad and something's gone horribly wrong and everything is bad. Just ask yourself, Hey, like it's okay. Like just know it's okay where I am right now. But I know I wanna be at point B.

So what was happening for me today that I, I got two hours. First of all, what worked well that I got the two hours that I got, like, how did I even get those? Let me ask myself. Okay. I, I had some focus time. All right. That worked really well. What didn't work? Oh, well I left my door open and people kept coming in or I kept picking up the phone or I, what decisions did I make today that impacted my ability to get the hours or what were some decisions that I made that actually really liked. And I'm glad I made and that makes it okay that I had these two hours, the two hours that I had to bill and everything else needed to be admin. I did some work on marketing, whatever it is, what happened and then start to say, okay, what do I want to happen tomorrow?

What thoughts are gonna help me move in that direction? Okay. I can do this. Like I can figure this out. I may not know a hundred percent what I'm doing, but I can get help. Or like I can just sit down and just think about how I want to plan my day tomorrow. So that things go more smoothly, but you've gotta start somewhere. You've gotta start turning the boat around and to do that. It takes curiosity and being kind to yourself and, and recognizing when you are judging yourself, that that judgment is not gonna be helpful. You've gotta just be like, okay, let's chalk that day up. It's over. It doesn't mean anything about me. I am gonna make what I want to happen happen tomorrow. Okay. That'll turn the boat around. Okay. Let me give you another example here. Let's say you are building another part of your practice out and you can also use this.

If you're building a brand new business, whether it's a legal practice or something else entirely cause a lot of the same thoughts apply your point a is where you are now in your practice, what practice areas you're doing, how much money you're making in your practice. Your point B is the practice area that you want to create. How much money you wanna create there, what your practice looks like. A lot of times, what I see with lawyers is they're telling themselves when they're building out their practice, that nobody wants to hire them. They don't have enough experience people. Aren't gonna take them seriously. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where to start. And they stay with their boat, turned against current and they stay stuck, right? Like they're grinding towards point a, right? They're not even letting themselves even get themselves a bit closer to point B cuz the flow just it's they're working against the flow.

But if they notice those thoughts, right? Like that's what I do with my clients is I help them notice the thoughts. I help them question the thoughts and I help them build evidence and take action towards point B. When they start to see the thoughts, they can start to understand that they are moving against the current. And that's why it's so hard to get to point B. It's not because point B is impossible to get to it's because they're moving against the current and they're moving as hard as possible against getting to point B, this is what it looks like. Right? They have all these thoughts. They're they're not good enough. They can't do it. Nobody's gonna hire them. And I had a client who was doing this and I, I talked to her and what she didn't recognize is that once she questioned those thoughts, she started to turn the boat around.

Right. We started to work on that and turn the boat around and then she could start to see, oh wait a minute. I do know what I'm doing. I have done this before. Like she was building a mediation practice. That's what she wanted to do. Like, wait a minute. I do know how to do this. I do have the training. I already actually do some mediating. Right? So as she was turning the boat around to get her to turn the boat around and start going with the flow towards point B, she had to start recognizing the evidence in her world that things were already working. This is incredibly tough to do. So if you notice that this is difficult, you're not alone. Like this is not work that they did on their own. They had help. Right? My first client, I was actually thinking of a client who I was talking to.

And the very first time I talked to her, I asked her on a scale from one to 10, how do you feel about your relationship with time? One being horrible and 10 being fabulous. And she answered a five or a six and about three months into working with her. I asked her the same question and she said a nine or a 10. And the difference between that time period is that she learned to see her thoughts, question the thoughts, get curious about the thoughts instead of judging them and then start turning the boat around and seeing where she had control, where she was already steering the boat in the direction that she wanted. And then she worked to create more evidence, right? Like we worked on the massive action on how to take time off for a vacation. Like what actions did she need to take?

You know, where did that belief need to be in order for her to take those actions? And that got her closer to that nine or a 10. Okay. It doesn't just happen on its own. You've gotta actively work at it and you've gotta do it consistently because the brain's gonna automatically turn that boat around and go back to it's like a magnet, right? Like it's magnet magnetizes two point a, all the thoughts that we have they're magnetic. And they're gonna just pop us back into point a, unless we release it. And we say, okay, let me release the thoughts that I'm having. That I can't do it. That I don't have time that I'm not experienced release. Those recognize that they are thoughts. And then just let the boat turn around and ask myself, how can I make this easier for myself? Where do I already, where am I already doing a good job?

What is already working? What can I see the progress that I'm making right now? What can I see right now? That's working really well. And that's one thing I work with my clients on is like showing them like, what is working right now? What processes are already working for you? What can we improve? What evidence can we show your brain that you do know what you're doing? We recreate all of that. We have to do it with our head. We have to do it consciously. And if we don't do it consciously, we're not gonna get that boat getting closer to point B. And remember you don't have to be perfect at this. You could be like at 50% with your thoughts, you could have really crummy thoughts half the time, but great thoughts the other half of the time. And you're gonna get closer to point B guaranteed.

It's when we never question our thoughts. And we just think that they're a hundred percent true and we have zero control over our life that we stay stuck at point a. So that's something that I really wanted to show you here today. I, I really hope that what you take away from this episode is how you talk to yourself. Like not believing everything that you're thinking. Even if the sentence, when you say it out loud is true. So for instance, I only made two hours billable today. Like first of all, I would never say a sentence like that ever. I'd say I made two hours billable. I, I did two hours today. What got done during those two hours. Okay. What did I do the rest of my time? And it may have been, you did fritter your time away, right? But don't tell yourself I frittered my time away because that's judging yourself, ask yourself how you feel when you think that thought.

And it's probably something like judgment, shame, disappointment. And then when you start recognizing that, you could be like, oh, that is a thought that keeps spinning my boat towards point a. I wanna go towards point B and just be like, okay, let me get really specific about what I did with my time. The rest of the day I did some marketing. Yes, I was on the internet. Some maybe I was frozen a little bit. I was like frozen at my computer. Didn't know where to start recognized that those were thoughts that you had during the day, because when you're frozen in front of your computer, that's coming from a thought, right? Cause that's a fear response. So you're having a thought, something like, I don't know where to start. I'm gonna screw this up. There's some thought that's happening there. And that thought is keeping your bolt pointed towards point a going against the current.

You've gotta find that thought, recognize it. And then be like, oh wait a minute. This is a thought. That's keeping me at point a. Let me question it. Why was I freezing today? Oh, I was scared. Oh, fear is not a problem. That's okay to be scared. What was I scared of? Oh, I was scared that my bosses were gonna think that I was a failure or I was afraid I was going to be a failure. Okay. I was thinking thoughts. All right, what do you need right now? I need to know, right? This is you talking to yourself. I need to know that I'm not gonna fail. Okay. And this is me talking to myself again. Like you're not gonna fail no matter what, you're gonna be fine. Right. Even if you don't get things perfect. That's okay. Nobody's gonna hurt you. Worst case scenario.

And maybe somebody doesn't like your work. This is, this is okay. We're gonna learn, but we just have to get started. So what's like the very, like, what's one thing you do know how to do. What's one step we can take towards finishing the task. We just do the tiniest thing. And just that little conversation with yourself is going to help you turn the boat around and get you moving towards point B, be so gentle and kind with yourself when you're having these conversations. Cuz when we're yelling at ourselves, this is not going to be helpful. Gonna keep us stuck, like grinding towards point B, going against the current versus turning our boat around and making it so much easier to get towards point B. And I've seen this in my business. I've seen this in my client's practices. I've seen this on time management skills, like how they manage their time and their calendars.

Every single client has the same thing as the boat is initially turned towards point a 99% of the time. And the reason they're not getting to point B is cuz they just haven't learned how to talk to themselves. How to notice their thoughts, recognize that they're just thoughts and start turning the boat around and letting the current and their thoughts start taking them closer to point B. And when you can do that, you can do more massive action towards your goals. It's gonna feel easier. You're gonna have more time towards what you want. You're gonna snap at people less. You're gonna feel less frustrated with yourself. You're gonna be more patient and kind with yourself as you turn the boat around. That's like what it takes is being kind and patient and nonjudgmental and start moving towards point B. If you want help with this, if you notice you're spending 99% of your time in point a and you're not seeing any traction towards point B, you need a coach.

You need somebody who is going to talk to your brain every week and recognize what's happening. I'd be like, okay, what thoughts are you having? What feelings are happening? Are you being anchored down into the river? Or can we release some things so that you can make it easier to flow towards point B? You gonna make it easier to get towards your goal. If you wanna book a call with me, go to Dina, cataldo.com/strategy session. And there we'll talk about how we will do these sessions. What specifically we're gonna be working on to help you move from point a to point B. What are all the tools that you'll need to help you turn that boat around and make your life easier? All right, my friend, I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon. Bye.