Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Well, hello everybody. Welcome to our LinkedIn Live. I am Karlee Stoppenhagen. I’m managing partner in Fort Collins. And I have, with me today is Panelist, Jasmine Bhatt, Nick Tootalian and Brian Litzinger. We’re going to be talking about work-life balance. But before we get started, I’d like everyone to give a quick little introduction so we know who we’re talking with. Jasmine, I’ll have you start, and we’ll go Nick, and then Brian.
Jasmine Bhatt:
Hi everyone, I’m Jasmine Bhatt. I’m managing attorney in Texas, of the Austin and the San Antonio offices.
Nick Tootalian:
Hi, I am Nick Tootalian. I’m managing partner for our location in Denver.
Brian Litzinger:
And hi, I’m Brian Litzinger. I’m the managing attorney for our location in Seattle.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
All our panelists know today we were talking about work-life balance. We couldn’t have a better group to talk about this given all of our positions and managing things like this in our own offices, and even talking with our clients and balancing everything. I know some people have kids, some people have pets and other obligations, so I think the best place to start today is how, and I’ll put this to the entire panel, how do you all manage the expectation of not only having a work-life balance but always being available? I think that’s something that clients often expect from us and we try to give them is our availability, but how do you balance that amongst your schedule and day-to-day lives?
Brian Litzinger:
I can start. For me, it’s setting clear expectations with clients as they first come on board, and setting that realization that normally those emergencies at 10 o’clock at night, as much as I’d like to do something about it, I simply can’t. I mean, the courts are closed. There’s really nothing we can do. And so, setting those expectations of … My day ends at six o’clock, I do my best to disconnect, walk away. I still check my phone. Unfortunately, it’s probably a bad habit. But setting that expectation that there will be circumstances where unfortunately I’m not reachable, and I found that clients are pretty understanding for the most part with that sort of boundary line in place.
Jasmine Bhatt:
And I’d echo Brian on expectation setting, and I think that goes for clients. Also, my team as well. If I need to be out or I’m in another meeting, I try to communicate like, “Hey, I’m going to be unavailable for this amount of time,” so that way people know that they can reach me. But if they don’t get an immediate response, they might know why. I think maybe the communication aspect with the expectation setting, sometimes the why can be really helpful too.
Nick Tootalian:
Yeah, I think expectation setting is a very big part of it, especially with clients. And I think that you also have to be pretty diligent in your responses the next day or the day after so that the client really gets it, which is, “I’m not going to be able to speak with you at 10 o’clock, but as I’ve demonstrated previously, I’ll be with you tomorrow morning.” And I think it’s really important to be diligent in all aspects of our communication with clients, of course, but there definitely is a line to cross. And with experience, I think attorneys understand what is emergent and what isn’t, to be kind of able to draw where those lines exist.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah. Do you have any advice for younger attorneys on that, or maybe inexperienced attorneys in this area of law? Because with what we do, people don’t have normal business hours for their family crisis or issues that arise. It really is minute by minute. Do you have any advice to younger attorneys or maybe even to yourself of what you wish you would’ve known starting out, and how to set those boundaries?
Nick Tootalian:
Yeah, I’ll start. It’s tough when you’re starting off because I mean you really don’t have the experience to be able to identify what needs to be responded to immediately and what doesn’t. I mean, like Brian said a moment ago, I mean 99.9% of the issues, at least in family law, we can’t address without the courts being open regardless. I mean, I think that there are certain types of motions that once you file it, they’re effective. And so in those circumstances it might be important, but most everything can wait. And something I would tell the associates that work in Denver is that you need to be able to walk away from your desk and separate the “emergencies” from your personal life. Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to address that issue the next day, right? You’re going to be too overwhelmed by everything happening in all of your cases to be able to actually give your clients some good advice. So having that downtime is utterly important, and responding the next way in most circumstances is appropriate.
Brian Litzinger:
I agree. I mean, I think finding a good mentor, someone you trust who can help guide you through those issues, who’s available to you? Is this an emergency? I don’t know. And I think that’s a part of our function as managing attorneys, managing partners, is to be that mentor, and have our associates reach out and go, “Well, can I do something about this? Is this something I need to address?” And there’s a learning curve to it, but I think getting to that place where you’re comfortable telling a client that, “I can’t do anything right now,” and have that not be interpreted as not being empathetic to what’s going on, but as just a reality check of as much as, “I really want to help and I want to do something for you, we can, and this is the path forward. It just can’t happen right this second. It can’t happen right now. Here are some things you can do until we can address it.”
Jasmine Bhatt:
In family law, everything’s priority, right? This is somebody’s family, their kids, their marriage, their assets, and so to a client, everything feels a little bit like an emergency, and I think when you’re a new associate, you don’t know how to distinguish maybe a client’s anxiety, which is often rightfully placed, with what we can actually do about that issue in that moment. And so I think having a mentor is really important for a new associate, because like Nick said, you don’t know what’s emergent right away. You learn that with a little bit of time. So having somebody that you can go to talk to, be it your managing attorney or a senior associate to say, “Hey, this is what’s happening. These are the facts.” Do I need to respond to this now? What can I do about it? What’s the best way for me to communicate this with the client? I think that will help in helping the attorney feel safe in the advice that they’re giving too, because we all want to give accurate representation of what we can and can’t do.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah, if I were to give myself advice, my younger self, or maybe myself yesterday even probably needed this advice, of not getting spread too thin. It is really difficult … It’s really easy, rather, to get pulled in all these various directions. Clients have this thing going on, and it is really important. Meanwhile, you have a deadline to make or something else. And I found burnout is real. I found that that’s something that I myself have struggled with, I know some of our younger associates struggle with, and I think also some of our clients struggle with burnout as well. Is that something you guys have seen in your own offices, or have any tips or tricks on how to disengage or manage burnout, or even when to identify it? I think sometimes the hardest thing is you don’t know you’re burning out until you’re in the middle of it.
Brian Litzinger:
I think it’s important to have not only your own support structure, like my family, my wife, and my son have been there since I started law school, because I went into law as a second career, and I was a night student. And I worked full-time while going to law school. And so managing those pressures plus testing, plus bar passage, I mean my family has been there the whole way through. But then, also knowing and having your hobbies, and recognizing that this is a stressful job. I mean, we’re dealing with families and children and assets and people’s livelihoods.
And knowing that it’s okay to step away, I think that’s a conversation I have with my team at least once a week, of, “It is okay if in the middle of the day you need to go over a run because you just got off the phone call with an opposing counsel who’s obnoxious, or your client is dumping everything on you, and you need to go play a video game, take 15 minutes, go sit in a hot tub. I don’t care. So long as you’re communicating that.” Because we really need to identify those things that lower our stress, allow us to disconnect from whatever’s going on, even for a short amount of time, and then step back into it, because it makes us better attorneys. If we’re just too focused on the singular event, the other stuff just starts passing by, and you can’t focus, you can’t meet those needs. So I think that’s one of the things I found to be very important for us.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
How do you do that, Brian? I think you do that very artfully. I think a lot of, myself included, a lot of people are like, these are my working hours. I’m sitting at my desk. If I miss something, it’s going to be an emergency and a crisis later. How do you set up your day? Is that something you consciously work to do, or are you just like, “I’m leaving right now and I’ll deal with it when I come back?”
Brian Litzinger:
It’s kind of one of those things. If it’s if I need to, I will step away and tell my team, or expect the same from them of, “Look, I need 15 minutes. I’m going to go work out. I’m going to go for a walk. I’m going to go grab my mail and just catch some air.” And I’m okay with that. I can’t imagine that many circumstances that are going to arise in that 15 minutes that are emergent and need immediately addressed.
The other thing I’ve done with my schedule, I mean almost since I’ve been a licensed attorney. Is I block my Friday afternoon off. And I do that specifically. So those things that I can’t get to earlier in the week, I already know I’ve got time set on my schedule that I can shift them to where I’ve got nothing else set. So I don’t start to get that stress of, “Oh man, I didn’t get to drafting that motion that I wanted to draft today. I’m going to stay an extra hour today to do it,” because I’ve already set time to accommodate those sort of things because it happens. Our schedules have to be fluid, things arise that things need to shift around, so I build in that time to make sure I’ve got that flexibility later on to accomplish those things that had to get moved.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
That’s great. Jasmine or Nick, do either of you do that too? I mean, I know I said email time in my calendar. That’s really the extent of my step away is I have 30 minutes to return emails. Do either of you have a plan to your day or do you take it as you go?
Jasmine Bhatt:
Well, I’m sort of like you, Karlee, in the sense of when I’m at work, I’m kind of at my desk, and before I know it, the day went by. And it’s always trial and error. Some months are different than other months, but what I try to do is block my time before work for myself. So I always have a few hours before eight o’clock where I might go work out or I might meditate or I might make a phone call. And so, I know I’ve taken care of myself a bit before the work day started. And then, that way, I do block out throughout the day time for emails or time to catch up. But sometimes, something pops up, and I’m doing something else in that block. But I feel a lot less frustration as the day goes by if I’ve carved out some time for myself prior to working hours.
So I already know like, “Okay, I’ve already gotten this in for myself,” that if the day goes outside of my plan, I’m not so riled up by it because I think that’s when, at least personally for me, I get the most frustrated if I haven’t meal prepped or taken the time to think of how my day might look, then the day’s just going to take over. And then, before I know it, at the end of the day, I’m exhausted and more burnt out than I might’ve been if I hadn’t taken that time prior to the work day starting.
But I do block out periods of time for a break or a walk or emails, or I try to keep a space in my day where it’s just to respond to people on my team or just to address clients that might have some emergency pop up. Or I might know there’s these few clients, these hearings are coming up, and I know we might get served with a motion that’s going to be set the same day or what have you. So I try to block out throughout the week certain points of time where I don’t have any meetings, and that seems to help a lot.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
That’s great. What about you, Nick?
Nick Tootalian:
Yeah, I’ve got three little kids at home, so very often it feels like when I sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee, that is my downtime, but I do the same. I just implemented this for myself, but every Friday I’ve been looking into the next week, and kind of locking my calendar down. Most of my time is spent jumping from this meeting to this meeting, to this meeting, so blocking off stretches of time a week prior, and just kind of locking down a calendar so that I can take care of my own work or make sure that I’m not spending a full day in back-to-back-to-back-back-to-back meetings for nine hours is something I’m really just implementing now. But for making sure that you avoid burnout, I think that it’s utterly important to learn your own limitations
And also make sure that your employer’s expectations align with your limitations. I think that where you’re working and the people that you’re working with or for is a key component to making sure that you don’t have burnout. I mean, there’s certain people who have certain personalities that love the chaos of the day and ping-ponging back and forth, and even answering calls from clients at 6:30 PM. and there’s other people that, I mean. Frankly, work isn’t their number one priority. It’s important, they’re very good at their job, but there’s other things that they need to make time for, so figuring out who you are, what your needs are, and making sure that your employer’s expectations aren’t infringing on your needs is really important to make sure that you have longevity with your employer to build a career, but also to stay in this practice.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah, no, that’s great advice. I found myself in the midst of burnout here a couple of years ago, and it impacted everything. It was even in my personal life that there was not time to … I felt like I couldn’t get things done there, and then I’d come to work, and it was a million things at once. And something I found helpful for me was just forcing myself to take a day off. Just nothing. I’m using a sick day, I’m taking a day off, and I am going to go do something that makes me happy. I didn’t know what that was, but just having time of, I’m not checking emails, I’m not doing anything. And it’s hard because I think for me, I felt selfish doing that.
And I was telling clients, “No, I am not talking with you today. I just can’t. And you don’t need to know why.”I sometimes have clients that really are interested sometimes because they care and they want to know what’s going on, or other times because they feel that that time without me being available, if something were to happen, because they know that that’s an exchange day or something else, telling them no is really hard. But really finding the space and taking it back for myself of, “No, I need to do this for me so I can be present at home, so I can be present at work and in the office and everything else I need.” I don’t know if any of you have ever had an example or times where saying no to a client is important or difficult, or how you do it artfully so you’re not hurting them because they’re very reliant on us as we go through their cases?
Nick Tootalian:
Yeah, this week. I’ve got an issue right now on one of my own cases, and it’s time-sensitive, and it’s involved and important without giving too much detail. And I started receiving phone calls from a client on Sunday. I got a phone call from my client on Sunday at 7:30, and absolutely not. This is something that we can talk about tomorrow at 8:00 AM. We’re not moving the ball forward right now, and I’ll be honest, you’ve got to have personal confidence and confidence in your analysis that this is not time-sensitive to be able to do that. And a lot of this just takes time in the profession to be able to get to that point realistically. The things that we’ve been talking about, like mentorship and being thoughtful about where the case is and where it needs to be are really important to be able to feel confident enough to reject a request from a call from a client that feels as if it’s important.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah, absolutely. I think on that same subject, we have a question from Chris. The question is, “You touched on burnout and workload and managing changing priorities, but what about empathy fatigue and vicarious trauma? Litigants and family law are usually really good people, but often on their own behavior. What coping mechanisms would you suggest to those new to family law?”
Brian Litzinger:
I started my career as a prosecutor. A lot of domestic violence, which also unfortunately runs frequently through my cases as well. But I had met with my elected district attorney back then because I was brand new, and they had kind of reiterated how important it is to place those walls up, and not as a separation from you and your client, but to recognize that these things are not happening to you. And doing your best to not become emotionally invested in the client’s emotions. Their case maybe, but not their emotions, because then we lose our perspective. People hire attorneys because we’re looking at this from the outside in. We can see avenues that they can’t. We can provide that guidance not being ruled by the emotions of the case.
And again, that doesn’t mean don’t be empathetic to your clients. It doesn’t mean you can’t sit and have a cry with them, because trust me, I’ve cried at adoptions. I’ve done all sorts of things because it is emotional. I’m not dead inside. But understanding that again, “This is not me, this is not happening to me. I’m helping someone else through this.” And then again, using that support group that you have, family, friends. Say, “Man, can we go grab a drink?” Or, “I just need a hug. It’s been kind of a rough day with this kind of stuff.” That’s really what it’s been for me, is developing those walls early on and recognizing that I’m helping this person get through this, as hard as it is, and staying focused on that, and not necessarily the events as they’re occurring.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Good advice.
Jasmine Bhatt:
Karlee, to your question about saying no to a client, and to Chris’s question about burnout and vicarious trauma, I think it all does go back to boundaries. I think if you can explain to the client, “Hey, I can’t talk on Sunday, but here’s a time I can talk.” Maybe knowing like, “Okay, this client has a hearing coming up. They’re going to be extra anxious. So instead of just simply saying, “No, this is the time I can talk instead,” and getting that set on the calendar, giving them the expectation of what to expect and [inaudible 00:20:40] work, and being available at the time you say you’re going to be available, but also not being available at a time where you say you’re not going to be available.
Because sometimes, I find that it helps my clients every now and then to explain to them that, “You want me to be a neutral party in this, right? Obviously advocating for you, but you don’t want me to be emotional and crying and upset and screaming and cursing out your ex with you. You don’t want that. You want me to be neutral enough to be able to guide you through this in an effective way. And so the way that I can do that is to make sure I stay in my lane and we keep our appointments, I make sure I support you the way you need to be supported. And also, I’ve got other clients. I’ve got a personal life. I have to be able to give some attention to those in order to be present for you.”
So I think with burnout, and there is a lot of vicarious trauma in family law, we do see a lot of family violence, and CPS concerns, and kids are taken away, and emotions are running high. And so personally for me, I find therapy helps making sure, like Nick said earlier, knowing my own limit. When am I getting really agitated? When am I feeling emotional about this case? And what do I need to do to step away for a second and just course correct and reset so that I can be the most effective for my client?
Nick Tootalian:
Empathy fatigue is really difficult, and it’s variable between individuals and personality. I mean, I think that you need to figure out what kind of person are you. Are you the kind of person that can be a steel-eyed attorney and know that, “My job is to represent based on facts applied to law, and the outcome is an outcome based on the circumstances of the parties and the situations therein,” or, “Am I the type of person that would really benefit from ending their day at 5:00, and not starting it until 8:00, 9:00?” And taking your cell phone and putting it away, and taking your laptop and putting it away, and making sure that you don’t see that text message or that email pop up from the client at seven o’clock at night, because the empathetic person’s going to answer it.
I think with time, as you see situations unfold and progress, it becomes easier to compartmentalize your own empathy for somebody you’re representing. But not always. Not always. Jasmine, I would anticipate that you have a very difficult time with it, and maybe not [inaudible 00:23:23], because you are an incredibly empathetic person. Do you think that over time, that subsided? Have you ever had a problem with it, or challenged by it? Are you still challenged by it?
Jasmine Bhatt:
Yeah, that’s a good observation because I think when I first started practicing, everything felt very intense for me. I know a client was upset and anxious and worried, and so I take it upon myself to talk after hours. And it still happens to me sometimes. There are certain clients that just kind of pull a heart string in a different way, not because they’re more important or less important than another one, but might just be some experience resonated with me or what have you. And I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night worrying about a hearing or worrying about a client or worried about safety, and yeah, I imagine Karlee, you too. And I think it took me a while to recognize that I can’t be the best attorney for somebody if I am also exhausted and stressed out and upset and worried all the time.
And so, I started slowly. It came with time, and I still struggle with it, but I would just have to tell myself. I’d have to put away my phone for a long time. I had the Outlook, my email app on my personal phone, and I had to stop putting it on my personal phone. Or sometimes, I would even delete it on weekends, because now we have two separate phones for work and home. But prior to this, I worked at a nonprofit, and we didn’t have the resources to stop do phones, so I would literally have to delete my Outlook app on a Friday, and then I’d download it again on Monday because I couldn’t help it.
It was just doom scrolling on Instagram or what have you. You click it, and before I know it, I’m answering emails and calling a client back. And so, I have had to really check myself like, “Hey, am I ending the day? Am I actually ending the day so that I can disconnect and come back with enough energy to have the next day?” Like you said, I’m not so overwhelmed in the next day, but I do. I have to always check that. And with time, it’s gotten better. And sometimes, I worry like, “Oh, am I desensitized now?” I have to ask myself. And I’m not, I think it just comes with time. I recognize where we’re I’m most effective, and that isn’t always the most effective for me than it is for my client.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
And it sounds like most of this discussion so far has been excellent in tips of how do you truly disconnect? I think that’s something that all attorneys, regardless of area of law, but especially this area of law, how do you truly disconnect? And we’ve deleting the apps and doing all of that, but how do you, on the reverse side of this, how do you still maintain … We all have billable requirements and pressures from work, expectations. So it’s one thing to you’re good at … 9:00 to 4:00 those are your working hours, and you have your day set up so you can disconnect. But when you are present, how do you capture that time so you’re still billable? Because I think that’s another really big pressure on the work-life balance of meeting billing expectations from your law firm.
Nick Tootalian:
Part of it is what I was saying earlier, about knowing yourself and working for the right employer. I think a lot of these billable requirements that I see from some of the other family law firms specifically or other areas of practice, at least in the Denver metro area, are things that I probably couldn’t do myself realistically. And I certainly couldn’t have done at the outset of my career. So making sure that you’re in a situation where you aren’t weekly or monthly struggling to reach the expectations of your employer is really important.
Brian Litzinger:
Yeah, I think I’d echo that. I mean, a lot of it comes down to what you can do, structuring your day, understanding that, “Well, I’ve got these obligations I got to get done today.” And I have to draft something, I block time to draft it so that it can become my focus. Doesn’t mean I can’t pick up the phone. Doesn’t mean if there’s an emergency that comes up, I don’t need to handle it. Again. That’s why block that afternoon on my Fridays, so that, “Okay, well something came up. This is going to have to move.” And it helps lower a lot of my stress and make sure that I am still meeting my expectations, getting the billing done that I need to get done, being available to my team for when they have questions or concerns without becoming overly stressed, and watching my list pile up of things that haven’t been done.
Jasmine Bhatt:
Yeah, I would agree-
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
[Inaudible 00:28:01]. Oh, go ahead, Jasmine.
Jasmine Bhatt:
No, I was just agreeing with both Nick and Brian is I think structuring the day, really planning out the day. I use my calendar. I don’t know, it’s like my left hand, because if I don’t put it on my calendar, if I don’t plan for it, I don’t know if it’s going to get done. I might get wrapped up in the day. And before I know it, I got my billable hour requirements. My team has the same that I’m responsible for managing.
So I try every day to just sit down, and first thing in the morning, What are three things I have to get done today, like my absolute non-negotiables, and am I prioritizing those in my calendar? And then I kind of have a three sections. What do I have to get done? What would I really like to get done, so it sets me up best for the next few days? And then, what do I have to get done but maybe can wait a week or two? If it takes a week, it won’t be the end of the world. So generally, it’s just really planning out the day I think it comes down to, because otherwise, you just lose track. And before you know it, it’s the end of the month, and then you’re extra stressed, and then you walk into the next month even more stress because you didn’t get a chance to disconnect from the last month.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah, absolutely. And I was on the same brainwave as you, because I was going to say pretty much the same thing as what I found effective for me, is I try, and compartmentalizing, “This is work time, this is lifetime, this is in-case-of-emergency time.” But in those work times, if I set out an hour, I really try to capture that entire hour as billable, like set everything else aside. And, “I’m sitting down for an hour, I’m going to make sure I capture all of it.” So that is something that I have found helpful because I do allow a lot of the creep in despite it, but I try to really maximize my time and my calendar, because I’m like you, Jasmine, I am absolutely live and die minute by minute by where I’m supposed to be.
And on that, I want to make sure that we all stay on our calendar. We have about one, maybe two minutes left, but we have a question from Amy that I want to pose to the group, and we can probably close it out from there. So Amy’s question is, “How do you guys cut yourself slack and avoid piling on a unnecessary stress outside of work? For example, setting unrealistic expectations for how much you can or should accomplish outside of work?”
Jasmine Bhatt:
Ooh, I’m working on that. I’ll let someone else answer.
Brian Litzinger:
Right there with you. I mean, unfortunately, sometimes that’s the stuff that suffers first. But almost similar to how I’m making sure I’m setting time outside of work, “Okay, now I need to do this.” I’ve got a son too, my wife, making sure that we’ve got time to be a family, and that that’s set, it’s set in stone. One of those things like Nick had mentioned, where you put your phone away at the end of the day. That’s me. When my end day hits, and my clients all know, my team knows. I will check in occasionally, but I’m walking away. I walk out of my office, my computer stays here, my phone stays here, and that becomes family time. So making sure that I can still meet those obligations, and I don’t feel bad about that because I’ve set those expectations with my clients, with my team, that I’m likely not going to be reachable because now this is my time. I give a lot of my time. I give a lot of myself to my clients and my job. I need time for me, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Nick Tootalian:
It comes back to a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about. And I think organization is really important, be it blocking your calendar to make sure that you have enough time to actually accomplish the things you need to accomplish, maximizing that hour, like you mentioned, Karlee, and making sure that it’s all built so that you’re not finding yourself having to continue hearing prep through the entirety of the weekend, for instance. Or finding yourself, if you have a goal, stressing out the last weekend of the month, catching up, because you took a three-hour lunch a couple of days during the week, or went and exercised to relieve stress, and took time off, and were slacking at the beginning of the month. So maximizing your time when you’re at your desk so that you don’t have to eat into your personal time is really important. And organization I think is kind of the keystone of all of it.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah, that’s great. Well, good questions from our listeners who were watching along. Anyone, parting words? Anything else to add on work-life balance and maintaining sanity in what is otherwise crisis and insanity day-to-day? Anything else? Parting words before we wrap it up here?
Jasmine Bhatt:
Yeah, I would just add communication I feel like is key with all of this as well, especially for newer associates, letting your supervisors or colleagues know when you need help. Don’t be afraid to ask questions because sometimes it can feel very alone when you’re in your own bubble. You have imposter syndrome. Everyone else seems to have it figured out. But I don’t know that any of us ever do. I think we all need to lean on one another, and ask questions, and share what we need, because that’s the only way somebody can help you with it. So not feeling afraid to be struggling or to have a question or not know what you’re doing, like we’ve all been there and we’ll all be there again. So I think just tapping into your network, your resources, your colleagues, your mentors is so helpful, especially in the beginning of practice.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Yeah.
Nick Tootalian:
Learn your limitations, learn to say no, learn to pass on clients that you’re not ready for, because the most stressful thing is having the stress of an important matter that you’re not ready for in front of you, and you might not be ready for it yet. You’ll get there, but know your limitations and learn them quietly.
Brian Litzinger:
Find what makes you happy, find what relieves your stress. And utilize it.
Karlee Stoppenhagen:
Beautiful. Yeah. I always tell my clients, “My job is to understand what you need, embrace your truth. There’s no right or wrong answer here. It’s your family, your life, your truth.” And I think putting that mirror back on ourselves of what do you need? It’s your life, your truth, exercise that so you can balance all of the things work, life, and self-care. We didn’t hit on that, but I think that was around the periphery here, of how do you take care of yourself while caring for others? And we all are working on that. And I thank you guys for joining because you are all masters at work-life balance, and I want to give time back in the day to everybody so we can go forth and help ourselves and help our clients. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for all of our listeners. And until next time with the next Modern Family Roundtable. Bye.
Jasmine Bhatt:
Thank you, Karlee. Bye.
