00:02 [Music]
00:14 all 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
00:21 happened 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
01:07 and 12 on a Friday and it's like two emails have a good weekend next week
01:13 let's hit up like nothing happens right and I don't want to be stressed i want to have a day off like let's just work
01:19 hard for 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 taught me that i love that no he he has his own medical practices and I
01:37 must have been 10 and he stayed home like he worked we never really saw him
01:43 and he worked so much and so he was home and I was like "What are you doing?" He
01:48 goes "It's my birthday." And I go "What do you mean but why aren't you at work?"
01:54 He goes "It's my birthday." And I He's like "It can wait today's the my day."
02:00 Yeah beautiful i love it and I go "Wait can I do that for school?" Like on my
02:06 birthday skipped school he goes "Absolutely." Yeah so since I was about 10 right i have never worked gone to
02:12 school on my birthday my employees don't my kids don't like Yeah i don't want you
02:18 i don't like Do you It's your day i love that i'm stealing that i'm going to
02:24 start implementing that for my for my life i think that's a beautiful That's your day that is your day to celebrate
02:31 your life don't make anybody else decide for you what to do i'm with you on the
02:37 Fridays like I've been doing that for a long time i think that for me you know for my mental health I use my Fridays to
02:45 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 Friday's like you I I will decide if I'm
02:56 gonna do something on Friday 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 which for me on success happens On Sunday I will spend
03:22 maybe an hour hour and a half getting ready for the week right nobody wants to work on Sundays but that hour and a half
03:30 getting ready for the week gets me so much further ahead yeah that I'm able to
03:35 take Friday off i used to before I had children I used to work every single
03:40 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 co forced us all to kind
04:11 of get better at it so I appreciate that because now most of my client meetings are via Zoom and my clients appreciate
04:18 it but pre precoid um we did it a lot so I worked every Saturday and I would use
04:24 that time to and and I did my dad and I never saw him but that's a thing but
04:30 that was before kids right so for me No no my No but for me I'm saying Yeah for you yeah yeah but the influence it has
04:38 Well you didn't have kids I guess right i didn't have kids then so I don't do that now but um I would not work Fridays
04:45 i would use my Fridays as my day and so I would make up for it by going in on Saturday so unless I have to be in court
04:51 in person I'm usually running errands on Fridays meeting up with friends having a
04:56 lunch t doing self-care doing this even going I last week I went to my um
05:02 friend's law firm and I just I I took that and I just went and enjoyed a couple hours working at her firm you
05:08 know so um every every Friday is kind of what I want to do and how I want to do it and that's helped me tremendously to
05:15 set me up for the week ahead to set me up for the weekend of solo parenting and birthday parties it's a lot you brought
05:22 up solo parenting um without getting too deep into it but
05:28 since we're segueing into mental health 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 struggle with it and so I wanted to to ask you Manel do
05:45 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 five months pregnant when he passed away so I had and and I had a 19-month-old so
06:04 I had a lot to to juggle and I had a successful law firm and employees and so
06:10 I started my therapy journey then and I have been consistently going pretty much
06:15 every week i've switched therapists so I had the first therapist for about 6 months and then I felt like I got them
06:23 to the maximum I could get out of with her i did take a little bit of a break for a few months and then I found this
06:30 new one i researched and found her and um she's wonderful and her she does um
06:36 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 and I are both doing this but holy crap I have like 40 years ahead of him right he's brand freaking
08:12 new he's He doesn't know how to so really it's not training him it's
08:18 training me and I don't think it's an age thing you know obviously you know at
08:23 his age it's an age thing but there are some clients that one of my most
08:30 brilliant clients was one of my first clients um he did family office he
08:36 represented the Vanderbilts the Cargis um the Candlers who own Coca-Cola so and
08:43 family offices business estate corporate like anything related to so no one and
08:50 it's inherited wealth for generational wealth right and so nobody cousins
08:58 nobody could make a decision without going through him right and brilliant
09:04 and he must have been I don't know like 70 right he was older and he had a
09:11 younger partner and he started asking me these questions about you know how to
09:17 deal with emotions and what to do and and it I was like you're just now asking
09:22 yourself these questions on how to cope and how to handle these things and
09:28 you're in your seven so people you could be 40 and not know how to handle things
09:35 i'm so happy you just mentioned that anecdote because one thing that I've been struggling with um you guys met
09:40 Holly earlier i recently started talking to Holly and she put me on to this path
09:46 about she saw the questions that I had or like the issues that I had that I needed to to to address to kind of fix
09:53 and uh one thing that I had shared with her I was like I'm I'm embarrassed that I feel like this is something that I
09:60 should have done in adolescence you know you when you're like 12 13 years old you
10:05 figure these things out not in your 40s no people don't like when kids are born as parents they don't come with
10:12 instruction manuals you know like we don't know if they're screaming them like "Oh turns out this is what collic
10:18 is." Yeah you know like I had no idea what collic was right but then even as a
10:25 human like I've been going to therapy every Friday at noon obviously today
10:32 today um sorry that this is evergreen content um but because you know as much as I
10:41 read as spiritual as I am as aware as I am right I don't know what to do
10:49 you know like it's easy for me to tell other people what to do and see the path for them right but to see the path for
10:57 myself on some of these issues I can only read so many books i can only and
11:03 to be able to just hey can you help me call balls and strikes on this or can
11:08 you just like let me just bounce this idea off of you and how should I handle it right it's and so it's not like he
11:17 tells me what to do it's more of have you thought of this or why don't you try
11:23 this you know and so I think it's weird that there's this negative connotation
11:30 about it because it is so I think everyone deals with it i think CO the
11:37 first year really brought it out but it was the second year of co that I think
11:42 destroyed a lot of people but this is like by co right like so like before
11:50 2020 this was an issue and now it's even worse and so I've been doing this since
11:57 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 in any
12:10 sort of way like estate it's it's the kids' lives right in in any situation or
12:17 like a significant fraction of their life in their hands right like a PE I
12:23 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 defense oh
12:51 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 talk about discipline in your Persian parents like try try my parents um Nicaraguan first
13:15 generation like it's so hard for them to just be like "Hey I'm confused i don't
13:21 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
13:35 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 know I was born in Canada and then we moved to the US and you know my father um is an engineer
13:48 he's retired now and but the train comes from Alabama me 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 um I
14:23 don't practice that with my kids but yet I kind of expect them to be obedient and
14:28 that's like you have to teach them like so what I think um so one of my
14:35 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 Loco
15:08 which in Spanish is crazy ass all right so everyone called me like Kulo kulo by
15:15 the way um I'm I'm pretty sure after this episode everyone's gonna call Yeah call me Kulo because I am Kula Loco i
15:20 think that's what people like about Right and then Mason was born right so Darius was first and then we had Mason i
15:27 thought we were done before Elgrace and then Mason was born and the minute like
15:32 he's you know the first six months they don't really do much right um it's more
15:38 of a Yeah yeah there they're just kind of there i might have another kid because now I know what Kula Loco is
15:45 mason is the most Kula Loco he is like Yeah i mean and it's it blows me away
15:52 see that makes me so nervous because Jude was my first and you know they say those second borns but Jude was already
15:58 Kola Loco and is and now Giovani is even worse like Gio Giovani I have a very
16:03 steep driveway he rode his Superman car down the drive
16:09 this is my 20month-old oh wow i caught him halfway through and saved him from
16:15 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
16:31 do it again and I have one of those retractable gate things at the top of my
16:36 driveway to like keep balls and stuff from fall and keep the kids from and I he threw the biggest fit because I
16:44 pulled it out and he was like what do you I was like you cannot ride down the driveway in this little you're 20 months
16:50 old like calm down and so that is my buttons that I've not I don't know how
16:56 to handle these behaviors i don't know how to handle this like craziness and so when I literally my my appointment with
17:03 my therapist on Wednesday this week um half of it was about my childhood trauma and the other half of it was about my
17:10 kids and their impulse control issues and how to navigate that so here's the
17:15 the other thing that I didn't realize like until I So the reason I went through therapy was of all the things I
17:23 was going through I had an issue i did not want my children to be a
17:30 product of divorce right my parents were 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
17:51 always know and for me I never understood that right my parents were always together and I never cuz it was
17:58 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 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 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 cuz he was born in a mountain village of
20:24 Nicarawa of of 18 of 1,800 people like no paved roads no lies right and like he
20:32 became a doctor in United States and had us in San Francisco like we have an obligation like we better not [ __ ] this
20:38 up it's like Middle Eastern parents and their expectations as well from kids very similar so they should have been
20:45 divorced right because it caused a lot with the s with the kids right
20:51 but they also loved each other in a way that I didn't really under like it was
20:56 such a like higher level of love you know that you know just how he cared you
21:05 know it was just so maybe they shouldn't you know you never know did you I'm sorry to interrupt prior to the divorce
21:12 did you do therapy then or did you start therapy after no I started before okay so cuz we had quasi been separated for a
21:19 while like I was living in an apartment and and it was it was upcoming and then
21:25 a a client saw me at a game and he's like "You look like shit." And I'm like
21:30 "Well I've been faking it for a while." And he goes "You need to go talk to this guy." Right he goes "It's okay i see him
21:39 too." Right and this is a very smart lawyer right like
21:45 it's like "It's okay." And for me again it's hard to ask somebody for advice
21:53 even though I like to ask because I like other people's perspective my job is to give advice so it's weird to go and say
22:02 "Tell me what to do." When everyone comes to me and says "Tell me what to do." Yeah right but this was a riddle I
22:10 couldn't fix so I was like if we end up going and getting a divorce right I
22:18 don't know how to handle this right so I saw him probably two years before we
22:24 filed right and so I've for six years every Friday right so I saw him before
22:31 on how to kind of like listen I'm going through this and I don't know what the answers are and I don't want to do this
22:38 with the kids and I need coping skills of dealing with this guilt that I'm
22:44 about to inflict on my kids right the ones that they're my favorite toys are
22:49 my favorite thing to do like my like I love sp like they're my favorite things and I'm about to [ __ ] them up
22:56 and how am I going to cope with that right but then we got divorced right um
23:02 but I started seeing him before manel how about you were you in therapy
23:09 prior to your So I did therapy one time before for a short period of time when
23:15 um I lost someone very close to me my one of my closest friends passed away and it was by suicide so that was you
23:24 know very traumatic and so I did seek some counseling that was in 2010 um and then when my husband and I
23:32 met we we we were rushed to get married and so we actually did marriage
23:37 counseling during for about a month or so before we got married and it wasn't
23:44 because there was a problem it was like hey we want to make sure we're covering all the bases and making sure we've
23:50 addressed things and talked about everything and anything that we need to do before we actually do this cuz we got
23:55 engaged 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
24:01 great it 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 parillegal 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 I just wasn't me and so obviously
25:04 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 other's
25:10 emotions and how we receive love how we show love and that's so this is the big
25:15 in any sort of relation like nobody ever talks like cuz we grew up nobody's
25:21 allowed to communicate nobody's allowed to talk about feelings right right and you're always stoic right so we lived in
25:30 that world right and the problem is everyone has the feelings like I don't
25:36 care how cool you could be whomever everyone has feelings right and everyone
25:44 makes assumptions yeah because they get in their head they're like "Oh you create a narrative you create this
25:50 narrative in your head of assumptions which should never like you need to stop
25:55 yourself right but everyone has these feelings everyone has these assumptions
26:02 the challenge is being able to communicate it in a receptive way yes
26:07 right because what people do is they have the feelings they have the things going in their mind but then they don't
26:14 communicate it right and you ha and you can communicate it to somebody else like
26:20 a therapist to give you perspective or with your partner or with whomever hey
26:26 this is how 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 my husband like this man I want to be with for the rest of my life i want to have a band i'm my baby daddy you
26:45 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
27:52 Giovani decided he wanted to just like suck on my cheek i'm like "What?" You
27:58 know cuz he's a he's a toddler and he thought it was hilarious and you know I'm like "These are things Mike doesn't
28:04 get to see and feel." So that is a lot of survivors guilt that is tied in and
28:12 so um therapy has been my main focus of good therapy when I started and it still
28:18 has shifted but the main focus has always been I need to make sure I'm the best I can be for my kids
28:26 so Gandhi said nothing goes right on the outside if nothing is right on the inside that's so true right so if you
28:35 can't get yourself right and deal with the things and not be afraid of just I
28:43 understand this happened to me i need to figure out how to process this and move
28:50 on 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
29:04 right and 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
29:42 these 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 effect there's ripples down and down down the
31:14 line but just because somebody's like famous or whatever like I know people
31:21 that the last thing I would have expected out of this person was to
31:27 commit suicide yeah 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 yeah you know it's and it's it's really sad but like the
32:02 conversation we the universe has a way of giving you signs that I got connected
32:09 the other day with my friend about another friend that it was like for some reason the
32:14 universe told me to reach out to you right and so then I reached out to the
32:19 other person and it was like it it takes a village this helped me like this is something that I've been
32:25 mindful of and was from when you told me and I would use it as a tool for me and then I want you to explain what it but
32:32 for me as a tool if I felt like I was getting anxious or stressed about something I would literally set a
32:37 12-minute timer on my phone and let myself feel it and then at 12 minutes I was done and I was trying to put that
32:43 into practice so to allow myself that time to process and that has so I live
32:48 in 12minute increments right um so when I started so I just turned 51
32:56 right and somebody just unbelievable somebody called So unbelievable somebody just called me 34 last night right i
33:02 would say 39 but still right at least we're still in the 30s i got 38 last
33:07 week but 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 a wiser person a wiser person told me this." Right right so I would I
33:46 would make up these little mantras and then just but attribute it to an to
33:51 somebody else right yeah and so one of my mantras like this success happens on
33:56 Sunday right um or you can't be a gold coin to everybody i live in 12-minute
34:01 increments right if I can do my best in these 12
34:07 minutes either for myself with the person that I'm with whomever
34:13 I'm going to try to do my best in these next 12 minutes and I'm going to be present and I'm going to be aware and
34:19 I'm not going to think about like I'm 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
34:41 for 12 minutes I'm going to be so in the moment and I know my
34:46 mind is like a sky with clouds right and it'll get cloudy sometimes and I'll have
34:51 these thoughts but eventually it's like in the next 12 minutes the clouds will pass right you know so just I live in
34:59 12-minute increments so now I know if I'm going to have lunch with you it should not last any longer than 12 minutes 11 minutes and 59 how did you
35:06 come up with 12 minutes it was a separation like because I never
35:13 knew so the kids were young i didn't know how to handle the kid like
35:18 affecting them in this traumatic sort of way i couldn't process that and then I
35:25 also didn't know what was going to happen when this
35:30 invisible monster or what when things were going to happen or what mood that
35:36 person was going to be in and so or what 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 point
35:57 sixes yeah right so this is a 0 two i need a 0 2 for this right but most
36:03 people don't understand a point 2 unless you've worked in a bill yeah right but I'm like this is a 2 let me just for 2
36:10 let me just I love that that's funny and I took it and I modified it with it but yeah but that's how it came into 12
36:16 minute 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 ging my emails you were recommended you were referred to a
36:41 therapist yeah right manell 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 6 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
39:19 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
40:03 want which I'm not going to say on this nationally acclaimed podcast i heard a
40:09 claimed I heard that what I want my therapist cannot give me yeah like she
40:17 she just can't they can just help you she can help me though 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
40:30 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 it
40:51 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 saying so okay um so when I
41:19 was going through all this stuff and I started therapy and everyone said like you look like [ __ ] what's funny
41:25 is somebody says you need to laugh more in your life like what are you talking about i make people laugh all the time
41:31 right like no you need to laugh more in your life and so I got into I didn't I
41:38 started watching standup comedy right like because I always did music as my
41:44 unwind but and I don't like TV i won't don't watch TV show i've never seen The
41:49 Simpsons i don't like Right and they're like "You need to laugh more." Did he
41:55 just age himself by saying The Simpsons like Yeah at 51 um I I don't know what
42:02 they watch now but I definitely don't watch it and um this one comedian said
42:08 something that also changed my life feelings are real but feelings aren't
42:14 facts yeah exactly feelings are real
42:20 we're allowed to have them right but they're not facts we need to learn how to cope
42:28 and have the skills to deal with it we have to live in fact i mean to live in a world of fact that
42:34 you're always going to have these feelings i don't care how famous you are how poor you are how this you are how
42:40 this you are you're going to have feelings and but that doesn't mean that they're
42:46 true right right and 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
43:01 it's also helpful when I I know it is for me and I I assume it's universal
43:06 because I'm not special but when you Yes you are thank you when you hear other
43:12 people be vulnerable and authentic and you hear oh you know everyone feels this
43:19 way everyone does everybody there's some solace in that for sure and and yeah for
43:25 sure and I think one of the most um anybody who's dealing with uh mental health issues or seeking seeking you
43:33 know a counselor whether it be a temporary issue or a long-term thing you know ultimately we all feel isolation
43:41 Yeah it's just gotten us to a point right they feel isolated in some way and
43:46 that is the worst feeling as a human being i think it's one of the worst feelings to have and I know a lot of women feel that especially after giving
43:53 child birth like child birth no matter what no matter who you have around you no matter what like there's a feeling of
43:60 isolation there that is unescribable and that's one of the worst
44:06 emotions to feel as a human being yeah and it's something that you have to work
44:11 through because like for me I know I feel isolated a lot but I'm around people 247 so it's not the same it's the
44:19 scariest thing to me when I when I 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 "Oh my god I know it." But it's such a paradigm shift like my
44:39 whole life I thought I don't have these issues right my parents aren't divorced i don't have these issues what are you
44:45 talking about you quantified you you put it all together based on divorce correct yeah weird yeah and so he's like
44:53 "Actually your parents were and
44:60 You became who you were because you were so isolated from everybody else and so you had to
45:06 develop yourself and you did it with music you did it with writing you did it with this you did it with that and you
45:12 did it with your personal like but at the end of the day this is actually what
45:17 happened and I left that session i immediately called my sister and I was like "Oh my god right?" Like "Oh my god
45:26 this is like this is" and then once you see it you can you can't unsee it you
45:32 can't 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
45:39 why I'm this is going to be a trigger for me." Yeah and this is why cuz you thought you were impenetrable but you
45:45 were actually lovely ally have you done any sort of therapy or anything have you ever I have and but
45:52 I've bounced um with therapists because I always I know I'm not special but I
45:59 have this uh problem where I believe I am and I'm like "No you don't understand
46:05 me this is your advice doesn't you don't understand what's going on." So I've I've actually bounced um through a few
46:13 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 isolating
47:14 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 the person and you bounced around
47:51 did that deflate you from trying to see it did yeah that's it did it absolutely
47:57 did and then it got to a point where I thought that I had enough learned enough
48:04 skill set i I'm smart enough to be dangerous to myself sure be like "Oh I
48:09 understand the concepts so I'll use that." Right the all three of us that was my
48:15 issue was and I feel like this is a little of what you're saying is I always felt
48:22 there was going to be this point where I was going to outsmart them
48:28 you know what I mean that's it right absolutely that's it they don't get it they don't get it and
48:34 that's my problem and that's why I love Neil right because I will out like I
48:39 will read it i will see it i'll see what your issues are and then I'll attack it
48:44 in a way that you don't even see it coming and that's to my therapist
48:50 right and it's a way to just validate that this is the person I should be
48:57 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 might be an ego thing
49:10 it's an ego thing no 100% and I I'm I know exactly what you're saying but
49:15 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
49:29 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
49:41 they're supposed to do we have 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 therapists you're not helping yourself
49:59 in 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 do you see what I mean so you go to your therapist because
50:22 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 that vibe like
50:30 but you got also take take accountability for your own process and and part and play in the part you play
50:37 in this absolutely one thing that I I learned for me is that the virtual
50:43 sessions don't work [ __ ] off uhuh you need No I person 100% you need to
50:49 connect i couldn't do I had to do I was forced to do a couple of them with my first therapist because like I needed a
50:55 session but like the baby was sick or my child care fell through or something and it was so toxic i would go sit in like
51:02 my guest bedroom and I did not want that energy in my home i just didn't and so I
51:08 needed to do the in person like always in person but like like she said like
51:14 Minnelle said like find your one two three four things right but then find
51:21 somebody that you can vibe with like 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 I say my rule of thumb is My grandpa
51:44 used to tell me this um for real or you 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
52:12 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 exchange information my firm needs
52:25 help." Right so the room clears room clear like I do that whole thing and there's one person standing in the back
52:31 of the room like and I don't notice them but they walk up to me like everyone's
52:38 cleared they walk up to me it's a former client that I fired go now I know why
52:44 you don't work with me anymore are you sure hell yeah it's so funny we're I now I'm
52:52 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 life's too short man too short and I don't want anyone that works here to
53:11 have to deal with Exactly that sort of And the problem is what I deal with is helping law firms right and I'm like you
53:18 see these people more than you see anybody else in your life more than you see your kids more than you see your
53:24 sign like you see these people more like you mean the employees and stuff yeah like the people you work with yeah
53:31 they're your family they come they are and it's like for me to dread coming to work or not have everyone like I'm not
53:39 saying they all have to go have drinks with each other like and go have like I'm not saying they have to be best
53:44 friends but I mean you spend so much time with these people like make sure
53:50 you surround yourself with the people right yeah i agree 100% i really
53:56 appreciate both of you guys coming is there anything that you feel like we haven't discussed or if there's anything
54:01 on your chest that you want to get off your chest before we sign off no I mean honestly I would love to do this again
54:08 if any listeners have questions and they want to reach out by all means that
54:14 would be fantastic actually on that note I wanted to mention that if you go to the AutoAccon Attorneys Group website
54:21 that's www.t t h a a a g- r
54:28 o.com that's www.thea aaagroup.com if you go to free
54:34 resources there's a forum there that just went live about a week ago um if
54:41 this isn't a live show but if you post 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
55:21 [Music] 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 Don't be Don't work
56:03 with [ __ ] don't be an [ __ ] that we don't want to start with nice yeah and live in 12-inute increments and
56:09 you're going to [ __ ] up but in the next 12 minutes I'll be all right my guess is
56:14 the people that are [ __ ] are people that haven't identified it yep and they
56:20 need therapy or their egoes maybe or their or their
56:26 ego is preventing them from communicating they might know about it
56:31 but their ego you know is preventing them from communicating it and seeking how to fix it so you've got people who
56:39 are just like are clueless like no awareness at all then you've got people
56:45 who are aware of it but their ego prevents them from communicating it and
56:51 then their ego also keeps them from fixing it from happening again in the
56:58 future yeah yeah which is why I have a driver right i know I know how to prevent
57:05 situations right like I can see all these things in advance love it so same thing for everyone else it's like you're
57:13 g
oing to be dealing with this it's happening like 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 crazy
57:39 like 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 crazy 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 is that
58:11 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 thanks man bye