00:00 all [Music]
00:14 right so we took a little bit of a break so if in the video there's like a splice or something just that's what happened
00:22 we got a couple of drinks uh stretched our legs and now we're back a little spice
00:29 you know it's Yeah it's still Well no it is lunchtime it's happy hour it's It's
00:34 Friday i don't work on Fridays i don't work on Fridays we were talking on the break i have these options of what to do
00:42 and how I've chosen to run like because the quality of life for me is so much
00:48 more important than how big can I get right if I advertise
00:55 well now I've got 50 employees now I have 100 now I need to do all and I I want Fridays off so our employees paid
01:02 Fridays off we don't want Fridays because nothing happens between 10:30
01:08 and 12 on a Friday and it's like two emails have a good weekend next week
01:13 let's hit up Nothing happens right and I don't want to be stressed i want to have a day off like let's just work hard for
01:19 four days let's just do our job and then Fridays are off like Yeah and your birthday's a
01:26 day off do not come it's a payday do not come to my office on your birthday and
01:31 my dad told me that i love that no he he has his own medical practices and I must
01:37 have been 10 and he stayed home like he worked we never really saw him and he
01:44 worked so much and so he was home and I was like "What are you doing?" He goes "It's my birthday." And I go "What do
01:52 you but why aren't you at work?" He goes "It's my birthday." And I He's like "It
01:58 can wait today's the my day." Yeah beautiful i love it and I go "Wait can I
02:04 do that for school?" Like on my birthday skipped school he goes "Absolutely." Yeah so since I was about 10 right i
02:10 have never worked gone to school on my birthday my employees don't my kids don't like Yeah i don't want you i don't
02:19 like Do you It's your day i love that i'm stealing that i'm going to start
02:24 implementing that for my for my life i think that's a beautiful That's your day
02:30 that is your day to celebrate your life don't make anybody else decide for you
02:36 what to do i'm with you on the Fridays like I've been doing that for a long time i think that for me you know for my
02:42 mental health I use my Fridays to do stuff like this that this as my therapist says this is self-care like
02:50 this is self-care um to do what you want friday's like you I I will decide Yeah
02:56 if I'm gonna do something on Friday yeah i don't want somebody else to decide but to balance it out I also say success
03:03 happens on Sunday right we we were talking um before about how to prevent
03:09 situations from happening and if you want Friday off know what it takes to be
03:16 able to take Friday off right which for me on success happens on Sunday i will
03:22 spend maybe an hour hour and a half getting ready for the week right nobody wants to work on Sundays but that hour
03:29 and a half getting ready for the week gets me so much further ahead yeah that
03:34 I'm able to take myself i used to before I had children I used to work every
03:40 single Saturday i had open office hours on Saturday for my clients because most of my clients work during the week and I
03:47 hated the idea of them having to take off work to come meet with my client with with their lawyer and this was
03:52 before Zoom was a big deal before COVID right and what we do specifically in in
03:58 my practice area I'm very old school i like old school papers nothing i have my digital and virtual Dropbox but like the
04:06 connection with a human being in person is so different covid forced us all to
04:11 kind of get better at it so I appreciate that because now most of my client meetings are via Zoom and my clients
04:17 appreciate it but pre precoid um we did it a lot so I worked every
04:23 Saturday and I would use that time to and and I did my dad and I never saw him
04:29 but that's the thing but that was before kids right so for No no my No but for me I'm saying Yeah for you yeah yeah but
04:36 the influence it has well you didn't have kids I guess right i didn't have kids then so I don't do that now but um
04:43 I would not work Fridays i would use my Fridays as my day and so I would make up for it by going in on Saturday so unless
04:49 I have to be in court in person I'm usually running errands on Fridays
04:55 meeting up with friends having a lunch take doing self-care doing this even
04:60 going I last week I went to my um friend's law firm and I just I I took that and I just went and enjoyed a
05:06 couple hours working at her firm you know so um every every Friday is kind of what I want to do and how I want to do
05:13 it and that's helped me tremendously to set me up for the week ahead to set me up for the weekend of solo parenting and
05:19 birthday parties it's a lot you brought up solo parenting
05:24 um without getting too deep into it but since we're segueing into mental health
05:31 we had an episode on mental health last week um I myself uh it it's a topic
05:37 close to my heart i I same struggle with it and so I wanted to to ask you Manell
05:45 do you go to therapy yeah so after my husband passed away um he passed away
05:51 very suddenly in April of 2023 shortly after I started seeing a grief counselor
05:56 and to really help me process i was also 5 months pregnant when he passed away so
06:01 I had and and I had a 19-month-old so I had a lot to to juggle and I had a
06:07 successful law firm and employees and so I started my therapy journey then and I
06:13 have been consistently going pretty much every week i've switched therapists so I
06:18 had the first therapist for about 6 months and then I felt like I got them to the maximum I could get out of with
06:26 her i did take a little bit of a break for a few months and then I found this new one i researched and found her and
06:33 um she's wonderful and her she does um grief and trauma and um parenting which
06:42 is just for me equally important as me processing my grief and trauma from my
06:47 husband's loss and then raising my children alone and entering into the workforce parenting is so important i it
06:55 does not come naturally to me as much as I wanted to be a mother and as much as I love being a mother the parenting
07:02 approach is not something that I was well equipped for because I'm very much
07:08 of the mindset of like the gentle parenting approach but that just doesn't work with my kids they just My my um
07:17 three and a halfyear-old Jude is very very uh defiant and inquisitive he's
07:25 very smart and he asks a million questions which I love and I am very patient with him asking questions i do
07:32 pat myself on the back for that i answer every question he has um but it's demanding and it's taxing and he um he
07:41 loves to push buttons and he's learning about emotions and he's I mean he's very much a toddler and three and a
07:46 halfyear-old and um he's so big for his size so it's like you forget he's only
07:52 three and a half he looks like he's five and um but yeah so she's really helped
07:59 helped me uh learn the tools that I need to be a better mom because this is the
08:05 first time he and I are both doing this but holy crap I have like 40 years ahead of him right he's brand freaking new
08:13 he's he doesn't know how to so really it's not training him it's training me
08:19 and I don't think it's an age thing you know obviously you know at his age it's
08:24 an age thing but there are some clients that one of my most brilliant clients
08:32 was one of my first clients um he did family office he represented the Vanderbilts the Carnegies
08:40 um the Candlers who own Coca-Cola so in family offices business estate corporate
08:47 like anything related to so no one in it's inherited wealth for generational
08:54 wealth right and so nobody cousins nobody could make a decision without
08:60 going through him right and brilliant and he must have been I don't know like
09:08 70 right he was older and he had a younger partner and he started asking me
09:13 these questions about you know how to deal with emotions and what to do and
09:19 and it I was like you're just now asking yourself these questions on how to cope
09:25 and how to handle these things and you're in your seven so people you could
09:31 be 40 and not know how to handle things i'm so happy you just mentioned that
09:37 anecdote because one thing that I've been struggling with um you guys met Holly earlier i recently started talking
09:44 to Holly and she put me on to this path about she saw the questions that I had or like the issues that I had that I
09:50 needed to to to address to kind of fix and uh one thing that I had shared with
09:55 her I was like I'm I'm embarrassed that I feel like this is something that I should have done in adolescence you know
10:03 you when you're like 12 13 years old you figure these things out not in your 40s no people don't like when kids are born
10:10 as parents they don't come with instruction manuals you know like we don't know if they're screaming them
10:16 like "Oh turns out this is what collic is." Yeah you know like I had no idea
10:21 what collic was right but then even as a human like I've been going to therapy
10:29 every Friday at noon well obviously today today um sorry I thought this is
10:35 evergreen content um but because you
10:40 know as much as I read as spiritual as I am as aware as I am right I don't know
10:47 what to do you know like it's easy for me to tell other people what to do and see the path
10:54 for them right but to see the path for myself on some of these issues I can
10:60 only read so many books i can only and to be able to just hey can you help me
11:06 call balls and strikes on this or can you just like let me just bounce this idea off of you and how should I handle
11:13 it right it's and so it's not like he tells me what to do it's more of
11:20 have you thought of this or why don't you try this you know and so I think
11:26 it's weird that there's this negative connotation about it because it is so I
11:34 think everyone deals with it i think CO the first year really brought it out but
11:39 it was the second year of CO that I think destroyed a lot of people but this
11:45 is like by CO right like so like before 2020 this was an issue and and now it's
11:53 even worse and so I've been doing this since 1997 so um my clients are are lawyers
12:03 right it's a very stressful job they have other people's lives in their hands
12:10 in any sort of way like estate it's it's the kids' lives right in in any
12:16 situation or like a significant fraction of their life in their hands right like
12:22 PE I was in a car accident right like I'm going through a divorce whatever the case may be and they they don't know how
12:30 to handle it right because they have their own issues they have all this stress coming at them they're also
12:36 probably parents are not like or maybe it's a relationship thing they have all these things and so I see so much mental
12:46 health issues with my clients and I work with lawyers right i'm not calling lawyers crazy guys don't get defensive
12:51 oh we are um but it happens to everybody yeah you
12:57 know and it's like growing up with doctors that's a whole another level of
13:02 ego compared to lawyers like everyone thinks lawyers have egos but imagine
13:08 growing up with doctors we were talking about discipline in your Persian parents like try try my parents um Nicaraguan
13:15 first generation like it's so hard for them to just be like "Hey I'm confused i
13:21 don't know what to do." Yeah right and it's like and they're and and they're embarrassed right and it's and we have
13:28 to we have to remember like I was raised kind of in a children are to be seen and
13:34 heard environment because culturally I think that's what our parents knew my parents were immigrants from Lebanon and
13:41 had kids young you I was born in Canada and then we moved to the US and you know my father um is an engineer he's retired
13:49 now and but the train comes from Alabama no train but you know so I was raised in that
13:57 world and I don't believe in that for my children i mean my house is loud it's
14:03 chaotic it's messy i wouldn't want it any other way it is very different than
14:08 the way I was raised at the same time I was you know spanked i was yelled at i
14:15 was spoken to very sternly and if you were too loud you got shot down and we we were it was ingrained in us
14:22 um I don't practice that with my kids but yeah I kind of expect them to be obedient and that's like you have to
14:30 teach them like so what I think um so one of my
14:36 best compliment testimonial things on was he's calm but authoritative
14:43 right and so that's how I am with my kids yeah i Mason had his birthday party
14:48 and everyone was there and he goes my dad is super cool but when he says it's time it's time right and so and that's
14:57 the thing it's like yeah but how old was Mason when he got to that point so Mason's 13 he's pro that was probably
15:02 when he was 11 so Mason is like yours so my nickname growing up was Kulo which in
15:09 Spanish is crazy ass all right so everyone called me like Kulo Kulo by the
15:15 way I'm pretty sure after this episode everyone's going to call yeah call me Kulo because I am Kuloko i think this is
15:21 what people like about Right and then Mason was born right so Darius was first
15:26 and then we had Mason i thought we were done before Elgrace and then Mason was born and the minute like he's you know
15:34 the first six months they don't really do much right um it's more of a Yeah yeah it's there they're just kind of
15:40 there i might have another kid because now I know what Kula Loco is mason is
15:46 the most Kula Loco he is like Yeah i mean and it's it blows me away see that
15:52 makes me so nervous because Jude was my first and you know they say those second borns but Jude was already Kola Loco and
15:59 is and now Giovani is even worse like Gio Giovani I have a very steep driveway
16:06 he rode his Superman car down the drive this is my 20-month-old oh wow i caught
16:12 him halfway through and saved him from like he would have he would have catapulted like it was it was bad and he
16:20 was laughing hysterically like thought it was the funniest thing in the world this just happened two days ago and I
16:26 carried him up and this little [ __ ] takes the cart and is positioning it to do it again and I have one of those
16:34 retractable gate things at the top of my driveway to like keep balls and stuff from falling keep the kids from and I he
16:41 threw the biggest fit because I pulled it out and he was like "What do you I
16:46 was like you cannot ride down the driveway in this little you're 20 months old like calm down." And so that is my
16:54 buttons that I've not I don't know how to handle these behaviors i don't know how to handle this like craziness and so
17:01 when I literally my my appointment with my therapist on Wednesday this week um half of it was about my childhood trauma
17:07 and the other half of it was about my kids and their impulse control issues
17:13 and how to navigate that so here's the the other thing that I didn't realized like until I So the reason I went
17:19 through therapy was of all the things I was going through I had an issue
17:27 i did not want my children to be a product of divorce right my parents were
17:33 still married right so if at whatever
17:38 age you are I promise you when you meet somebody at some point in time and
17:46 relatively soon they're going to tell you that their parents were divorced you always know and for me I never
17:53 understood that right my parents were always together and I never cuz it was
17:59 like clearly traumatizing my parents divorced when I was seven my parents divorced when I was my parents like you
18:06 will know when somebody and I never wanted to do that with my kids so I could research all I wanted about how to
18:14 self-awareness how to give advice but I had no
18:19 idea how to decide the trauma I'm about to inflict
18:25 on my children versus because Ella Grace would say "How
18:32 come we're only a family of four how come we're not a family of five?" or when are you done with this house and
18:38 moving back you know and I don't know how to deal with that right yeah and so
18:44 what I went was kind of how how to deal with this because I didn't want my kids
18:52 being tr and and the guilt that I feel that you we're both equally responsible
18:58 for what happened but as parents you know there's guilt in this is the trauma
19:06 that we've created for these kids that that I promise you I've met so many people that are like my divorce went and
19:14 it caused something else that so I've created this other trajectory now in their life right what about the people
19:21 that have you met enough people that say my parents should have been divorced and that trauma that it caused that they
19:28 didn't my parents my parents should have been divorced i think that's my parents should like we talked they should have
19:34 been divorced they were together almost 60 years right
19:40 um we always said they should have but when my mom passed I learned this new
19:46 level of love from my dad that I never knew before right and I was like was it
19:53 that like he couldn't be himself it was more No so he was a total dick growing
19:59 up right it wasn't until like we all left and he got that he started being
20:06 cool right seems pretty masculine patriarch mhm and a doctor like you have
20:12 like no like so many layers there's like there's and like my brother and sister are professional athlete like there like
20:18 there was and when you're first generation you have that obligation of right cuz he was born in a mountain
20:24 village of Nicarawa of of 18 of 1,800 people like no paved roads no lies right
20:31 and like he became a doctor in the United States and had us in San Francisco like we have an obligation
20:37 like we better not [ __ ] this up it's like middle eastern parents and their expectations as well from kids very
20:43 similar so they should have been divorced right because it caused a lot with the s with the kids right but they
20:52 also loved each other in a way that I didn't really under like it was such a like higher level of love you know that
21:02 you know just how he cared you know it was just so maybe they shouldn't you
21:07 know you never know did you I'm sorry to interrupt prior to the divorce did you do therapy then or
21:14 did you start therapy after no I started before okay so because we had quasi been separated for a while like I was living
21:20 in an apartment and and it was it was upcoming and then a a client saw me at a
21:27 game and he's like "You look like shit." And I'm like "Well I've been faking it for a while." And he goes "You need to
21:34 go talk to this guy right?" He goes "It's okay i see him too." Right and
21:40 this is a very smart lawyer right like it's like "It's okay." And for me
21:49 again it's hard to ask somebody for advice even though I like to ask because
21:54 I like other people's perspective my job is to give advice so it's weird to go
22:01 and say "Tell me what to do." when everyone comes to me and says "Tell me
22:07 what to do." Yeah right but this was a riddle I couldn't fix so I was like if
22:13 we end up going and getting a divorce right I don't know how to handle this
22:20 right so I saw him probably two years before we filed right and so I've for
22:27 six years every Friday right so I saw him before on how to kind of like listen
22:34 I'm going through this and I don't know what the answers are and I don't want to do this with the kids and I need coping
22:41 skills of dealing with this guilt that I'm about to inflict on my kids right
22:46 the ones that they're my favorite toys or my favorite thing to do like my like
22:52 I love spending like they're my favorite things and I'm about to [ __ ] them up and how am I going to cope with that
22:59 right but then we got divorced right um but I started seeing him before
23:05 manel how about you were you in therapy prior to your So I did therapy one time
23:13 before for a short period of time when um I lost someone very close to me my one of my closest friends passed away
23:20 and it was by suicide so that was you know very traumatic and so I did seek
23:26 some counseling that was in 2010 um and then when my husband and I met we
23:33 we we were rushed to get married and so we actually did marriage counseling
23:38 during for about a month or so before we got married and it wasn't because there
23:44 was a problem it was like "Hey we want to make sure we're covering all the bases and making sure we've addressed
23:50 things and talked about everything and anything that we need to do before we actually do this." Cuz we got engaged
23:55 and married within 3 months of meeting oh wow yeah so it was very quick and I'm happy we did that it was It was great it
24:02 was very It opened up lines of communication my husband and I were very
24:07 different we were absolutely ying ying and yin and yang um but we're just very
24:13 different types of communicators i'm an extrovert he was more of an introvert um his his he's a fix it he's a Mr fix it
24:21 and I'm like nah I need a minute yeah or I'm going to say things I'm going regret i'm a fighter he's a lover you know so
24:26 it was just like we we really we meshed very very well together so doing that um
24:33 premarital counseling was really so we could understand each other's communication styles and make sure we
24:39 covered all the bases of what should because I believe I did I did very little family law work when I was still
24:45 a parallegal and I always believed that people got divorced for sometimes really stupid
24:52 reasons but in fact people got married for even stupider reasons correct and so
24:58 I wanted to make sure we were not getting married because we were in love like that just wasn't me and so
25:03 obviously you know we were rushed so we did it and it was great um counseling it was um very good for us to process each
25:10 other's emotions and how we receive love how we show love and that's so this is the big in any sort of relation like
25:18 nobody ever talks like cuz we grew up nobody's allowed to communicate nobody's allowed to talk about feelings right
25:25 right and you're always stoic right so we lived in that world right and the
25:32 problem is everyone has the feelings like I don't care how cool you could be whomever
25:40 everyone has feelings right and everyone makes assumptions yeah because they get
25:46 in their head they're like "Oh you create a narrative you create this narrative in your head of assumptions
25:53 which should never like you need to stop yourself right?" But everyone has these
25:58 feelings everyone has these assumptions the challenge is being able to
26:04 communicate it in a receptive way yes right because what people do is they
26:09 have the feelings they have the things going in their mind but then they don't communicate it
26:16 right and you ha and you can communicate it to somebody else like a therapist to
26:21 give you perspective or with your partner or with whomever hey this is how
26:27 I respond to things this is a trigger for me and not be
26:32 afraid to talk about your especially with your partner and that's why it was so important for us to do that because
26:39 this is my husband like this man I want to be with for the rest of my life i want to have a baby and my baby daddy
26:45 you know so like I want to set us up for success and that was you know the the it
26:50 was important because at the end of the day I'm very traditional in my values when it comes to relationships and
26:57 marriages this is my person this is the one all beall this is the most important figure in my life and anything I do
27:04 affects him so I need to make sure what I do is affecting him in the right way
27:09 and vice versa and so that was um really beneficial for us and then you know
27:16 after he passed I started all the the counseling and I'm still very much processing his loss and the grief and
27:23 the things and the triggers i mean it's still only two years it's fresh it's still very very very fresh and not only
27:30 that but I have babies so I remember him every single day already but then add on
27:36 to it my children you know every time like yesterday was the in your own
27:41 practice and and like like yesterday was Jude's end of year party at school and I just I'm like "Oh man Mark would love
27:47 this." Like he would just love to be here i mean anything even today this morning
27:53 Giovani decided he wanted to just like suck on my cheek i'm like what you know
27:59 cuz he's a he's a toddler and he thought it was hilarious and you know I'm like these are things Mark doesn't get to see
28:05 and feel so that is a lot of survivors guilt that is tied in
28:12 and so um therapy has been my main focus of good therapy when I started and it
28:17 still has shifted but the main focus has always been I need to make sure I'm the best I can be for my kids yeah so Gandhi
28:26 said nothing goes right on the outside if nothing is right on the inside that's so true right so if you can't get
28:37 yourself right and deal with the things and not be afraid of just I understand
28:44 this happened to me i need to figure out how to process this and move on
28:51 so that I can take advantage of this life that I've been given
28:56 and live it to its fullest but if I don't deal with these things they will continue to pop up yeah yeah right and
29:05 so it's okay to everyone's going to have these things
29:10 happen right but so to be able to say if I'm not my best self then I'm going to
29:18 be the worst boyfriend I'm going to be the worst husband I'm going to be the worst father I'm going to be the worst
29:24 friend I'm going to be the worst what employee whatever it is but nothing goes
29:29 right on the outside if things are right in the inside so if you're feeling like
29:36 why do I keep hitting these brick walls because again inside you have these
29:43 feelings right and you're afraid to communicate it or share it but guess what everyone has them on the
29:49 professional level i mean most of my clients at some point in in our defense
29:56 of their case you know especially if it's like a DUI you're going to have to do an alcohol and drug evaluation and
30:01 most of them it's just you have to do it it's an evaluation and then if there's any substance abuse issues you know
30:07 counseling or treatment can be recommended for the most part first lifetime offenses there's no further
30:13 treatment and you're done but I have a lot of clients equally who are you know
30:18 needing something whether it be substance abuse but most substance abuse
30:24 issues stem from a mental health issue right and that's that's where the root
30:30 of the problem is um you know and and mental health counseling and treatment
30:36 is so important and unfortunately our our world and our
30:42 society doesn't is still very taboo to a certain degree i think it's starting to get more it's starting to become less
30:49 taboo but also on the other side I feel like it's almost starting to become like an excuse and like a cool thing and it's
30:55 not it's it's sad because there's a lot of mental health issues that go undiscovered or undisclosed because it's
31:02 like well that's just life right but also what are we trickling you know there's like it's like a it's a it's a
31:08 when you throw a rock in the pool what are the ripples there's ripples there's ripples down and down down the line but
31:14 just because somebody's like famous or whatever like I know people that the
31:23 last thing I would have expected out of this person was to commit suicide
31:29 and it was like like So the Kobe Bryant thing like still
31:36 messes me up that he's dead right but that was an accident right and you would
31:41 never expect a Kobe Bryant to commit suicide right but I've known same sorts
31:50 where it's like I would have never expected this person was going through all this that this was their only
31:56 solution you know it's and it's it's really sad but like the conversation we the
32:04 universe has a way of giving you signs that I got connected the other day with
32:10 my friend about another friend that it was like for some reason the universe told me to reach out to you
32:16 right and so then I reached out to the other person and it was like it it takes a village this helped
32:24 me like this is something that I've been mindful of and when from when you told me and I would use it as a tool for me
32:30 and then I want you to explain what it but for me as a tool if I felt like I was getting anxious or stressed about
32:36 something I would literally set a 12-minute timer on my phone and let myself feel it and then at 12 minutes I
32:41 was done and I was trying to put that into practice so to allow myself that time to process and that has so I live
32:48 in 12-minute increments right um so when I started so I just turned 51 right and
32:57 somebody just unbelievable somebody called so unbelievable somebody just called me 34 last night right i would
33:02 say 39 but still right at least we're still in the 30s i got 38 last week but
33:08 imagine me 27 years ago I look 12
33:14 and so in order to feel valid with a creative writing degree not a JD not an
33:20 MBA right so in order to feel like hey
33:25 you should listen to me I would make up little phrases and say "My dad used to tell me
33:33 this my granddaddy used to tell me this." Right just cuz they that way it
33:39 was like "No my dad the doctor an older person wiser person a wiser person told
33:44 me this." Right right so I would I would make up these little mantras and then just but attribute it to an to somebody
33:51 else right yeah and so one of my mantras like this success happens on Sunday
33:57 right um or you can't be gold coining to everybody i live in 12-minute increments
34:02 right if I can do my best in these 12 minutes either for myself with the
34:09 person that I'm with whomever I'm going to try to do my best in these
34:15 next 12 minutes and I'm going to be present and I'm going to be aware and I'm not going to think about like I'm
34:21 going to and I know I'm going to [ __ ] up and I know every 12 minutes I'm not
34:26 going to get them all right right but if I can just get through these 12 minutes and do my best for myself for my kids
34:35 for my clients for whomever I'm with if I'm going to have lunch with somebody for 12 minutes I'm going to be
34:43 so in the moment and I know my mind is like a sky with clouds right and
34:49 it'll get cloudy sometimes and I'll have these thoughts but eventually it's like in the next 12 minutes the clouds will
34:56 pass right you know so just I live in 12-minute increments so now I know if I'm going to have lunch with you it
35:01 should not last any longer than 12 minutes 11 minutes and 59 how did you come up with 12 minutes it was a separation like
35:11 because I never knew so the kids were young i didn't
35:16 know how to handle the kid like affecting them in this traumatic sort of
35:21 way i couldn't process that and then I also didn't
35:27 know what was going to happen when this invisible monster or what when things
35:34 were going to happen or what mood that person was going to be in and so or what
35:39 mood I was going to be in like we're equally right and so what I decided was
35:45 dude I don't know what's going to happen from the next 12 minutes to the next 12 minutes mhm like I have no idea what's
35:50 going to happen i have no idea and the 12 minutes came from so I came from a billable practice and we bill in sixes
35:58 yeah right so this is a 0 2 i need a 0 2 for this right but most people don't
36:03 understand a point 2 unless you've worked in a bill yeah right but I'm like this is a 0 2 let me just for 2 let me
36:10 just I love that that's funny and I took it and I modified it but yeah but that's how it came into
36:16 12minute i live in 12-minute increments from a practical standpoint if somebody
36:23 has not been on this like journey on trying to seek help and get better how I
36:30 know Alvo Professor Kulo Loco yeah I like that one
36:35 better i'm changing my email you were recommended you were referred to a
36:41 therapist yeah right manel how how did you find your therapist the first one um
36:48 was a referral from a friend um in the area i wanted somebody close by to my house and uh had grief counseling she
36:56 was older um she was like I said she was good but I kind of got what I could from her for those first six months and then
37:03 the second one I actually found her on my own i wanted to stay local to my home close by cuz if it's far away I'm not
37:11 going to go like I know myself accountability is is not a thing so I
37:16 needed to be um easy to get to and um I read her biography i I didn't really
37:22 look at reviews or anything i just went I I Googled and I loved her biography i
37:28 loved what she said about herself online and her background she's um Israeli so I
37:35 felt that um cultural connection as well which was very important with the the
37:42 stuff that I'm dealing with and then um she is a mom as well her kids are on the
37:48 same age as my kids and she has the child uh psychology background so I
37:54 think she hit four of the most important things I wanted to get out of my therapist and um I've been very happy
38:00 with her i think she's wonderful and I think that's important too right so I asked like a lawyer when you have a
38:07 lawyer this is what I'm like so not even my kids know what I do and I could pop
38:12 quiz both of you guys and you will say two different things everyone thinks I do something different right nobody
38:19 knows what I do which is hilarious right but because it depends on the person right depends on which 12 minutes right
38:26 but I always tell them I'm like what are your pain points like what are the four
38:33 or five things that you need me to help you with right and you just articulated
38:39 what she needed to make sure this is a right like
38:44 here are my four issues that I'm struggling with right and be able to
38:49 articulate them you know like and say can you Oh you can fix all four of these
38:57 issues let me talk to you and then from there it's a vibe from there it's a vibe
39:02 like if the energy matches the energy matches right but at least you've articulated and identified what your
39:09 issues are and how you need help that way when you go to see them you're like
39:14 "Hey here are the four things I have or one thing like my I had one thing right
39:20 here's what my issue is i need help navigating this." Yeah right and then it
39:25 depends on the vibe i think it's really important too for seeking mental health um assistance
39:32 similar to when my clients come to me and I'm like my job is not to find you not guilty like that's not my job i
39:39 think therapists that their job isn't necessarily to quote unquote fix you
39:45 their job is not to solve your problems their job is to really help you figure
39:51 out the approach and resolution on your own based on what you yourself need so
39:57 like I know I have a very realistic approach to my therapy i know what I want which I'm not
40:04 going to say on this nationally acclaimed podcast i heard a claimed I
40:11 heard that what I want my therapist cannot give me yeah like she she just
40:17 can't they could just help you she can help me though it You have to You know what she's going to help me do
40:24 eventually is she's going to help me realize I can't [ __ ] get that so I need to stop wanting it
40:31 and that is the process and that's what I accepting it and we we right now her and I are focusing on this um topic of
40:38 radical acceptance and I'm trying to wrap my brain around how radical
40:43 acceptance does not mean approval and it's really [ __ ] hard for me
40:50 it really is so we're focusing a lot on that because the radical acceptance is
40:57 just completely effortlessly emotionally unemotionally accepting of a fact that
41:05 my brain and heart cannot accept right now so that's that's a rough because I
41:11 can't approve it ma listen i don't know why I keep So
41:16 um so when I was going through all this stuff and I started therapy and everyone
41:22 said like you look like [ __ ] what's funny is somebody says you need to laugh more
41:28 in your life like what are you talking about i make people laugh all the time right like no you need to laugh more in
41:34 your life and so I got into I didn't I started watching standup comedy right
41:41 like because I always did music as my unwind but and I don't like TV i won't
41:48 don't watch TV show i've never seen The Simpsons i don't like Right and they're
41:53 like "You need to laugh more." Did he just age himself by saying The Simpsons like Yeah at 51
42:00 um I I don't know what they watch now but I definitely don't watch it and um
42:06 this one comedian said something that also changed my life
42:11 feelings are real but feelings aren't facts
42:17 feelings are real we're allowed to have them right but they're not facts we need to
42:25 learn how to cope and have the skills to deal with it we have to live in fact i
42:32 mean to live in a world of fact that you're always going to have these feelings i don't care how famous you are
42:38 how poor you are how this you are how this you are you're going to have feelings
42:43 and but that doesn't mean that they're true right right and
42:49 so how do I cope with this to be like
42:55 all right it's not true but here's how I should approach the issue i think it's
43:01 also helpful when I I know it is for me and I I assume it's universal because
43:07 I'm not special but when you Yes you are thank you when you hear other people be
43:13 vulnerable and authentic and you hear oh you know everyone feels this way
43:19 everyone does you know everybody there's some solace in that for sure and and
43:24 yeah for sure and I think one of the most um anybody who's dealing with uh
43:30 mental health issues or seeking seeking you know a counselor whether it be a temporary issue or a long-term thing you
43:37 know ultimately we all feel isolation and guidance gotten us to a point right
43:44 they feel isolated in some way and that is the worst feeling as a human being i think it's one of the worst feelings to
43:50 have and I know a lot of women feel that especially after giving child birth like child birth no matter what no matter who
43:57 you have around you no matter what like there's a feeling of isolation there that is
44:03 unescribable and that's one of the worst emotions to feel as a human being and
44:09 it's something that you have to work through because like for me I know I feel isolated a lot but I'm around
44:15 people 24/7 so it's not the same it's the scariest thing to me when I when I
44:21 started being present to it i didn't realize that I had these issues
44:27 for decades same and it was but now when I'm when once you're aware of it you
44:34 can't you're like I know it but it's such a paradigm shift like my whole life
44:39 I thought I don't have these issues right my parents are divorced i don't have these issues what are you talking
44:45 about you quantified you you put it all together based on divorce correct yeah weird yeah and so he's like actually
44:54 Yeah your parents were and you became who you were because you
45:02 were so isolated from everybody else and so you had to develop yourself and you did it with
45:08 music you did it with writing you did it with this you did it with that and you did it with your person out like but at
45:14 the end of the day this is actually what happened and I left that session I immediately called my sister and I was
45:21 like oh my god right like oh my god this
45:27 like this is and then once you see it you can you can't unsee it you can't
45:32 unsee it it's like oh this is why I act the way I act oh this is how I prevent from doing this again oh this is why I'm
45:39 this is going to be a trigger for Yeah and this is why cuz you thought you were impenetrable but you were actually
45:46 lonely ally have you done any sort of therapy or anything have you ever I have
45:52 and but I've bounced um with therapists because I always I know I'm not special
45:59 but I have this uh problem where I believe I am and I'm like "No you don't
46:05 understand me this is your advice doesn't you don't understand what's going on." So I've I've actually bounced
46:12 um through a few therapists and uh I went with uh psy psychologists
46:19 uh and some talk therapy and I am actually now seeing a psychiatrist
46:27 uh that was because I I felt physiological reactions to some of the
46:32 emotions that were uh impeding my ability to just
46:38 like live life the way I thought I should um or you want to or Yeah that's
46:44 a better way of saying it i had thrown myself to to the benefit of my clients i
46:50 had thrown myself into work so long hours you know 10:00 p.m 2:00 a.m 4:00
46:56 a.m i can't sleep so I wake up and I just work i would come to this building if you guys saw the office I sort of
47:01 built it so I could live here essentially i was constantly working and I I had only recently realized that
47:09 that's there those are actually signs of depression uh I was isolating but I was
47:14 isolating through work yeah but because it's work and it's productive my brain's not registering no
47:21 one bats an eye to that right right did it deflate you so the first step is just
47:27 admitting and accepting right like that's the hardest thing for people to
47:33 do and then the next step is to commi communicate it did you find it deflating
47:40 or this isn't going to work by bouncing around because like one of the things I
47:46 was saying is like you need to have the vibe of the person and you bounced around did that deflate you from trying
47:53 to see it did yeah that's it did it absolutely did and then it got to a
47:59 point where I thought that I had enough learned enough skill set i I'm smart
48:06 enough to be dangerous to myself sure be like "Oh I understand the concepts so I'll use that." Right the all three of
48:13 us mhm that was my issue was and I feel like this is a little of
48:20 what you're saying is I always felt there was going to be this point where I
48:25 was going to outsmart them you know what I mean that's it right absolutely that's it
48:32 they don't get it they don't get it and that's my problem and that's why I love Neil right because I will I'll like I
48:39 will read it i will see it i'll see what your issues are and then I'll attack it in a way that you don't even see it
48:46 coming and that's to my therapist right ju and it's a way to just validate
48:54 that this is the person I should be taking advice from because if I can outsmart you right why do I need to even
49:02 see you right i can figure this out on myself right right but I think that's the problem right it might be an ego
49:10 thing it's an ego thing no 100% and I I'm I know exactly what you're saying
49:15 but simplify it your clients come to you because they want you to outsmart
49:22 the insurance company because they can't do it or the court system or the court system right but that is not what we do
49:30 sure sometimes but in general that's not what we do right so we need to stop
49:36 thinking that we're better or smarter than our therapists who are doing what they're supposed to do we have
49:43 unrealistic expectations from our therapists right and we are thinking
49:48 we're the smartest man person in the room and that's fine we can think that all day long but really you're just
49:54 you're not helping yourself in front of anybody if you think that way you're not helping yourself in front of your therapist you're not helping yourself in
49:59 front of your friends your colleagues your clients i totally understand the theory so try simplifying it like we

50:05 people come to us to help them right they come to you for your expertise even
50:10 though they could technically be smarter than you most a lot of people are smarter than me i'm not that smart i'm
50:16 just good at what I do you see what I mean so you go to your
50:22 therapist because they are better at that than you are or I'd say it's a vibe because if you weren't you have to have
50:29 that vibe like but you got to also take take accountability for your own process
50:34 and and part and play in the part you play in this absolutely one thing that I
50:40 I learned for me is that the virtual sessions don't work [ __ ] off uhuh you
50:45 need No I person 100% you need to connect i couldn't do I had to do I was
50:52 forced to do a couple of them with my first therapist because like I needed a session but like the baby was sick or my
50:57 child care fell through or something and it was so toxic i would go sit in like my guest bedroom and I did not want that
51:05 energy in my home i just didn't and so I needed to do the in person like always
51:11 in person but like like she said like Minnell said like find your one two
51:18 three four things right but then find somebody that you can vibe with like
51:23 this person's cool I actually like like this person you know like we obviously
51:29 have boundaries you know like you're not going out right just like you have boundaries with your client yeah you
51:35 have to have the boundary but you have to vi like Yeah i need to like you like
51:40 I say my rule of thumb is my grandpa used to tell me this um for real or you
51:46 just saying it for real like my rule of thumb is I
51:52 don't work with [ __ ] if I can't have a beer with you sure i don't want you as a client same i don't work with [ __ ]
51:58 that's my I say that in CLE's like and so I was at this I say that in every consultation i say this all the time
52:05 right it's like one of my phrases i'm at a CL 300 lawyers i'm giving my speech i
52:13 throw out my mantras i don't work with [ __ ] after each speech right there's
52:18 usually a line i'm like "Hey my name's I work in Nevada love your speech can we
52:23 exchange information my firm needs help." Right so the room clears room
52:28 clear like I do that whole thing there's one person standing in the back of the room like and I don't notice them but
52:35 they walk up to me like everyone's cleared they walk up to me it's a former
52:41 client that I fired go now I know why you don't work with me anymore are you
52:46 sure yeah hell yeah it's so funny we're I now
52:51 I'm learning a lot today i now know why I get along with you so well one is the birthday thing we we give the birthdays
52:57 off here but they get to choose if they don't want to use it on a different day and then two is we we won't work with
53:04 [ __ ] either on the clients it's not worth it dude life's too short man too short and I don't want anyone that works
53:10 here to have to deal with Exactly that sort of And the problem is what I deal with is helping law firms right and I'm
53:18 like you see these people more than you see anybody else in your life more than
53:23 you see your kids more than you see your sign like you see these people more like you mean the employees and stuff yeah
53:29 like the people you work with yeah they're your family they come they are and it's like for me to dread coming to
53:35 work or not have everyone like I'm not saying they all have to go have drinks
53:41 with each other like and go have like I'm not saying they have to be best friends but I mean you spend so much
53:47 time with these people like make sure you surround yourself with good people
53:52 right yeah i agree 100% i really appreciate both of you guys coming is there anything that you feel like we
53:59 haven't discussed or if there's anything on your chest that you want to get off your chest before we sign off no I mean
54:05 honestly I would love to do this again if any listeners have questions and they
54:11 want to reach out by all means that would be fantastic actually on that note
54:16 I wanted to mention that if you go to the AutoAccon Attorneys Group website that's
54:24 www.t a aaa g.com that's
54:30 www.thea aaagroup.com if you go to free resources there's a forum there that
54:37 just went live about a week ago um if this isn't a live show but if you post
54:43 questions in the forum not only will we respond there but I may uh bring it up
54:48 during the podcast and if you submit a question maybe we'll bring you on so that I can answer it in person with you
54:56 and as far as social media goes obviously I'm attorney Ali Manell how
55:01 can people find you um you can find me at the Shahheim Law Firm and uh I can
55:08 definitely share all that info fantastic the link will be in the wherever you're
55:14 watching this in the body there will be a link professor I'm going to say professor
55:22 everyone is crazy okay everyone's crazy i don't care how
55:28 cool you think you are everyone's crazy it's okay to be
55:33 crazy the the idea is how do I handle this crazy and when I meet other people
55:41 like a significant other or children how do I translate that in a productive way
55:51 but everyone I don't care how cool you are everyone's crazy and I think also like how do we help each other with our
55:57 crazy it's a village and be kind it is a village yeah don't work Don't be Don't
56:03 work with [ __ ] don't be an [ __ ] that we don't want to start with nice yeah and live in 12-minute increments
56:09 and you're going to [ __ ] up but in the next 12 minutes I'll be all right my guess is the people that are [ __ ]
56:16 are people that haven't identified it yep and they need therapy or their ego
56:22 Jesus maybe or their or their ego is preventing them from
56:28 communicating they might know about it but their ego you know is preventing them from communicating it and seeking
56:36 how to fix it so you've got people who are just like are clueless like no
56:43 awareness at all then you've got people who are aware of it but their ego
56:48 prevents them from communicating it and then their ego also keeps them from
56:55 fixing it from happening again in the future yeah yeah which is why I have a
57:00 driver right i know I know how to prevent situations right like I can see all
57:08 these things in advance love it so same thing for everyone else it's like you're going to be dealing with this it's
57:14 happening right i don't care how cool or invincible you think you are this it's
57:20 happening to you right and so being aware of it being able to communicate it
57:26 and then being open enough and vulnerable enough to let somebody help you with it because it takes a village
57:32 it does it's good to know that it you're not the only one feeling it others are feeling it as I said everyone's like
57:39 everyone I don't care how cool you are everyone's crazy everyone's crazy just don't be an [ __ ] it's okay to be
57:45 crazy just don't be an [ __ ] well crazy folks everyone's And that and you [ __ ]
57:52 if you're an [ __ ] please subscribe if you're crazy like this
57:58 video um leave comments obviously we're like any other podcast we're trying to
58:05 to get more traction online so your help would be smash that like button
58:11 is that what the kids say that's what the kids say smash that like button alvaro Manell thank you so much
58:18 listeners I love you guys until the next episode you guys take care bye