Feel All The Feels

Intro ??

Being an attorney is supposed to mean that you are a stuffy, emotionless human-bot-droid. You are part Vulcan meets DMV worker. Feelings have no place alongside logic and legal analysis. Emotions cloud judgment and decision-making. To be an attorney is to deny your humanness.

But I don't buy into that any longer.

An attorney can be emotional and have feelings. I am no neuroscientist, but if you numb yourself to one emotion, you actually numb yourself from all emotions. So you want to numb out pain, then you're also going to cancel out feeling joy, elation, bliss, satisfaction, etc. Clients hire humans (not bots, yet). Showing a wide range of emotions and feelings make you more relatable and approachable. Don't bottle it up or repress it. Laugh with clients. Cry with clients. Rage with clients. It is okay. People might actually discover that you're human.

Book Worth Reading ??

For Christmas my wife gifted me the book Sad Happens by Brandon Stosuy and illustrated by Rose Lazar. It is a collection of stories about sadness, people crying, observing people cry, and our relationship to tears. I learned that humans are the only creatures to cry because of emotions. I most recently cried listening to a Metallica song on the radio (because I am cool and still listen to the radio).

For a person that gravitates towards the melancholic, I really appreciated the vast swath of experiences people have with sadness and crying. I thought this book was the perfect pairing to Susan Cain's Bittersweet.

Tidbit/Tip ??

Write down your favorite emotion and focus on it for a week. Recently, I have been focusing on being more care free. It has been awesome to see how I can refocus my thoughts, energies, and intentions to that if I see myself taking things too seriously.

Bit o' Bankruptcy ??

A common misconception is that any debt owed to the government cannot be gotten rid of in a bankruptcy. EIDL loans, although owed to the Small Biz Administration, can be discharged (legal obligation eliminated) in a bankruptcy.

Podcast ??

I already have all 20 guests lined up for the next season of The Newfangled Lawyer Podcast!! New episodes will start rolling out in March 2024.

Can't wait to continue my mission of humanizing the legal profession one candid conversation and story at a time.

In the meantime, check out the 1st season of the podcast.