The POSITIVE Lawyer? behind the scenes

The POSITIVE Lawyer ? is our core program that supports lawyers to transform their mindset and ways of working. It is unique and groundbreaking. Tailored specially to support lawyers in the current challenging climate of dramatic change and transformation within the legal industry.

It brings together my skills and experience working with thousands of lawyers over the last decade to transform both mindsets and ways of working.

It combines concepts and tools from Positive Psychology with my global expertise in legal project management and legal process improvement.

What is Positive Psychology?

Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both subjective and psychological wellbeing. The term was first used by Martin Seligman to describe psychological practices that move away from the traditional deficit model, towards a preventive model that leverages and magnifies strengths to support happier and more fulfilling lives.

Many prominent proponents describe it as “the science of human flourishing”.

It is definitely NOT ‘pop’ psychology. The tools and techniques draw on decades of extensive research on what improves the quality of our lives.

Positive psychology is not about – being happy all the time, removing negative emotions, or positive thinking. Although positive thinking certainly supports many of the theories and techniques.

Growth Mindset – Getting ready for The POSITIVE Lawyer?

The last newsletter covered the concepts of Growth Mindset and drew on the research of Carol Dweck, another key figure in the field of positive psychology. Without a Growth Mindset, I would never have been able to develop and deliver The POSITIVE Lawyer ?.

I already had the expertise in transforming ways of working through legal project management and legal process improvement. I’ve never doubted my expertise in this area as I am one of Australia’s leading experts in project management with almost 40 years of delivery experience, combined with extensive academic experience in the Master of Project Management at Sydney University. I’ve also written a super practical textbook Project Management Essentials, Cengage 2014.

I’m also a global leader in legal project management and legal process improvement. I wrote one of the first books in the area of Legal Project Management, LexisNexis, 2014 and I’ve trained thousands of lawyers. I established the Legal Project Management practice at Herbert Smith Freehills and developed the LPM framework behind Ashurst Advance.

I have also been coaching many lawyers in personal productivity, positive mindsets, and people leadership. Although I did fall into this rather accidentally when I started to realise that some of my clients benefitted from getting the foundation in order before they could adopt the new legal project management concepts and ways of working. I wanted to discover more techniques and concepts to support my coaching clients, so I completed my Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner qualifications and became a TimeLine? Therapist. These are great tools to identify and release limiting beliefs, and more importantly to adopt more empowering beliefs.

Then, one of my amazing clients invited me to run pilot programs for all their staff – both lawyers and other professionals. And The POSITIVE Lawyer ? was born!

The process of developing The POSITIVE Lawyer?

In June last year, I decided to back myself and concentrate on developing the new program. It took 8 months of full-time effort to design and develop The POSITIVE Lawyer ?.

I absolutely LOVE the process of writing, researching, designing, curating, and developing meaningful training programs, and this is the best one yet. Just describing the process makes me feel energised and lights me up! I find great meaning and satisfaction in this work, and it fits perfectly with my purpose in life “to share knowledge and create change”.

The result is a truly amazing program that combines world-class online learning with the opportunity to have one-on-one or group-based coaching sessions with me. Working one-on-one with my clients is so uplifting – just the other day one of them breathed an enormous sigh of relief and made the spontaneous comment – ‘well I do feel much better now”. Another client also told me last week that I didn’t have to help him solve everything in the first session, as he was more than happy to go on the journey.

So, what’s in The POSITIVE Lawyer?. box?

I love getting parcels in the post and the excitement of sort of knowing what’s in the box, and then the joy of opening the box to see what’s inside.

You also get some amazing bonuses…

I’d also love to jump on a 30-minute FREE initial coaching session to give you a taste of what the program is all about.

Staying match fit for The POSITIVE Lawyer ?

I haven’t finished my learning journey yet. I am currently finishing off my Diploma in Positive Psychology. I spent 9 days in Byron Bay, 6 of them doing intense learning and covering the theory components of the 6 core learning units.

The major breakthrough I had on the first day is that The POSITIVE Lawyer ? already contains tools and techniques from 5 out of 10 of the most prominent researchers in the field. Wow, that felt good and gave me even more confidence in the program.

Now I have lots more tools in my kit bag to support my coaching clients. We practiced many of the tools during the training and we all had personal breakthroughs. Over the next 12 months, I have opportunities to deepen my confidence and understanding.

The purpose of my life is to share knowledge and create change!

I’m aiming to inspire you to achieve great things!