“I was surprised at how much I got out of coaching. I don’t know that I expected as much as I got.
– Kara Brinster
BACKGROUND
Kara Brinster is a litigator and mediator who owns a family law practice in North Dakota. She’s also the elected state attorney for her county handling prosecutions, as well as a mother and wife. She had no problem attracting clients to her firm, but she didn’t have the processes in place to allow her the life she wanted outside of working on cases.
When she came to Dina, she made it clear she wanted to be happier.
After achieving her goal of feeling happier after 6 months (details below), she realized the work she was doing with Dina wasn’t just making her happier; it was increasing her income week-after-week.
She was literally working less and making more because she was happier.
As a result, Kara decided to continue coaching to take her practice to the next level. The case study that follows contains data from 2 years of weekly one-on-one coaching sessions lasting 50 minutes each showing it doesn’t take a lot of time to change; it simply takes consistency and repetition.
THE PROBLEM
Kara was constantly putting out fires and jumping from one responsibility to another without the ability to breath. She was putting her life on hold to practice law hoping that the harder she worked, the more time she’d get back in the future.
Kara was an avid crafter and quilter before her law practice took over her life, and she missed the time she used to spend in her craft room, which she abandoned. She also had a young daughter who was growing up fast; she wanted to spend more quality time with her and not constantly feel like their time was cut short by work.
Constantly having deadlines that snuck up on her created a sense of panic that activated her nervous system. Her nervous system was in fight-or-flight constantly, which made it impossible for her to think. Instead, she found herself in constant reaction mode.
Being in constant reactivity not only made it difficult for her to think, it drained her energy.
She also stored a tremendous amount of information in her head about both work and home tasks. She was constantly thinking about everything that needed to get done and took the responsibility of remembering everything, which created a lot of anxiety and even resentment towards her husband.
“Before I started coaching, there was a constant thought of, ‘There has to be a better way to do this,’ but never really knowing how to find that, and through coaching, I got there. I found a way to function, and manage, and breathe.” – Kara
DEFINITION OF SUCCESS
Kara defined success in coaching as being happier, which by extension meant
1) feeling more in control at the office
2) feeling calmer in her body
3) getting back into her crafting room and spending quality time with her daughter
WHAT KARA TRIED BEFORE COACHING
- working late into the evening when she remembered a deadline
- writing to-do lists
- keeping deadlines and appointments in her head
- cutting out what she loved to get more work done and handle household responsibilities
- listening to podcasts
“Finding a way to calm my nervous system down and get my brain out of my way allowed me to tell my husband what I needed, and he could hear me because I wasn’t approaching it in a way that made it harder for him to hear; [before] I sounded more complaining than asking for help. [Now] We’ve found ways to problem-solve without having to get mad or angry.” – Kara
SOLUTION
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for any lawyer. Each solution to a problem depends on the specific challenges a lawyer faces.
- Gaining clarity on the lifestyle she wanted.
- Becoming present to her reactions, and gaining the skills to calm her anxiety and worries.
- Understanding that the first solution her brain offered was not the only solution. In fact, the other solutions often aligned better with plans for her lifestyle and business.
- Recognizing when she was frustrated, and finding a solution instead of accepting her brain’s initial response, which was often, “That’s just the way it is.”
- Growing her confidence to raise rates and turn away work that wasn’t in alignment with her business plan.
- Created a calendar system that worked for her specific circumstances and allowed her to track work better. This way she wasn’t worried she’d miss a deadline or holding deadlines and tasks in her head or on a long to-do list.
- She mastered a system, then handed it off. Example: After Kara mastered her law practice’s calendar, we worked on how to train her assistant to use it, and Kara eventually handed her system over to her assistant to manage her calendar giving her back even more time.
- Improved her quality of life by weeding out predictable frustrations. For example she stopped taking calls one hour before she needed to pick up her daughter from day-care, so she wasn’t late to pick-up and didn’t feel rushed to get out her office door.
- Designated time to create SOPs and instructed her assistant to create SOPs.
- Began clearly communicating what she wanted from her husband without distancing herself from him. This required her to notice when she was in lawyer-mode and was demanding instead of opening up a conversation. As Kara puts it, “ reminding herself that she and her husband were not in a lawyer-client relationship.” She and her husband also decided to use the app Google Keep, to facilitate household projects.
PRESENT DAY
Kara steadily increased her income thanks to the work we did together, gets to leave the office early to spend time with her daughter after school, and has a better relationship than ever with her husband. She’s also reported having her highest grossing month since starting her business. She feels confident enough in her consistent income to finally give herself and her staff a raise as well.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Click here to book a Strategy Call with Dina.
DISCLAIMER
Dina provides informational and education services only. She does not provide accounting, financial, tax, medical, therapeutic, or legal advice.
