June 26, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® podcast, I chat with Barb Nangle —a boundaries coach, speaker, author, and podcaster who helps professional women break free from self-neglect and step into their power through the practice of healthy boundaries. A former Yale University program coordinator, Barb brings a wealth of experience from both the academic and entrepreneurial worlds.
Listen in as Barb and I explore:
• The unseen ways poor boundaries may be sabotaging your law firm’s culture—and what to do instead.
• Why gossip, overwork, and resentment are red flags—and how boundaries can turn it all around.
• The real difference between therapy, coaching, and recovery work—and why boundaries coaching fills a crucial gap.
• How people-pleasing and perfectionism keep women entrepreneurs stuck—and what freedom looks like on the other side.
• Why ‘fixing’ others is a form of control—and what it means to show up with integrity as a law firm leader.
• How to stop acting like a victim and start leading like a boss—with clarity, courage, and self-respect.
LINKS TO LOVE:
Connect with Barb on Instagram: @higherpowercoaching
Grab her free starter kit at www.boundariesstarterkit.com
Imagine: scaling your law firm to multiple millions, working less, and enjoying the freedom and flexibility you deserve. It's possible, and I can show you how. For over a decade, I've helped hundreds of women law firm owners achieve this dream with my proven blueprint. Now, you can get your hands on this same blueprint for just $27. But don't wait, this offer won't last forever.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:01):
Welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. What
Davina (00:05):
if
Intro (00:05):
you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask
them about growing their firms,managing resources like time,
team, and systems, masteringmoney issues, and more? Then
take an insight or two to helpyou build a wealth generating
law firm. Each week, your host,Devina Frederick, takes an
in-depth look at how to thinklike a CEO, attract clients who
(00:25):
you love to serve and will payyou on time, and create a
profitable, sustainable firm youlove. Devina is founder and CEO
of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and hergoal is to give you the
information you need to scaleyour law firm business from 6 to
7 figures in gross annualrevenue so you can fully fund
and still have time to enjoy thelifestyle of your dreams. Now
(00:48):
here's Devina.
Davina (00:50):
Hello, and welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer
podcast. I'm your host, DevinaFrederick, and my guest today is
Barb Nangle. Barb is aboundaries coach, speaker,
author, and podcaster. She has amaster's degree in sociology and
worked for nineteen years atYale University as a program
coordinator for urban educationprevention and policy research.
(01:11):
While working at Yale, she hit acodependent bottom, which landed
her in 12 step recovery whereshe learned to build healthy
boundaries.
She was astonished at the rippleeffect of her boundaries on her
team and her project.Communication, morale, and
effectiveness improveddramatically. This showed how
(01:32):
when one person changes thedynamics of their interactions,
everything around them changes.Formerly masking her struggles
with substance use andovereating, she shed over 100
pounds and confronted her deepseated negativity and fear. In
02/2017, she got laid off fromYale and found her way into the
world of startups, innovation,and entrepreneurship in New
(01:55):
Haven and at Yale.
Driven by desire for growth andsocial justice, through her
business, Barb now empowersprofessional women to break
patterns of self neglect.Through boundary coaching,
speaking, and her podcast,Fragmented to Whole, she guides
women to reclaim their power andsay no to what no longer serves
them, fostering a world whereinner change drives societal
(02:18):
impact. Please join me inwelcoming Barb Nangle to the
Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast.Hi, Barb. It's good to see you
today.
Barb (02:26):
Hi, Davina. It's really good to be here. I'm very
excited for this conversation.
Davina (02:30):
Me too. Well, you are a boundaries coach. So I have a
lot of questions about that.Want to get into it. First
though, tell us a little bitabout yourself and how you came
to be a boundaries coach.
Barb (02:44):
Sure. And I will try to do the micro version because
there's a lot to it. I just wantto start by saying like I'm a
sociologist by training. I havea master's degree in sociology.
I worked for nineteen years atYale University as a program
coordinator for urban educationprevention and policy research.
And seventeen years into mycareer at Yale, I hit a
(03:04):
codependent bottom. And just incase people don't know what that
means, welcome to the club, Ididn't know what it meant
either, even though I had read agajillion self help books and
been in therapy and done allkinds of personal development
work. So a codependent person issomeone who is essentially
fixated on everything outsidethemselves. Like, what's he
doing? What's she doing?
What do they need? What does theperson need? What does that
(03:25):
situation need? The classiccodependent is in some kind of a
relationship with an addict oran alcoholic. And I landed in
twelve Step Recovery forcodependents, and that led me to
get into a couple of othertwelve Step Recovery programs.
And all of the decades ofpersonal development that I did
before recovery sort ofscratched the surface of the
(03:48):
iceberg of my life, Divina,whereas recovery melted the
iceberg. So, I learned so manythings. I learned so many things
about myself that I wasn't awareof despite all that personal
development work. But I thinkfor me, because my core wound is
codependence, learning how tobuild healthy boundaries changed
everything. So I was stillworking at Yale when that
(04:09):
happened and what I started tosee was there was this ripple
effect of my boundaries on myteam and the project.
And I was like, wait a minute,like none of these people are in
recovery. What is going on here?And it really just goes to show
that when one person changes thedynamics of their interactions,
things around them change. Soone of the many myths about
(04:31):
boundaries is people think if Ihave healthy boundaries, I'll be
able to control other people.No, you won't.
Who you will be able to controlis you, and then that will have
a ripple effect. So you can'tcontrol other people, but you
can influence them by settinglimits and holding those limits
and also setting limits foryourself. So I stayed at Yale
(04:52):
for another couple of years. Iwas laid off and through a
series of wonderfullyserendipitous events, I found my
way into the world of startups,innovation, and entrepreneurship
at Yale and in New Haven.Started my own business, very
quickly started my own podcast,which is called Fragmented to
Whole Life Lessons from 12 StepRecovery.
And I started it really notthinking it would have anything
(05:14):
to do with my business. It wasall about taking all of this
wisdom I was learning about inrecovery and bringing it out
into the world. And now thatpodcast is the number one way
that I get clients. Initially, Iwasn't a boundaries coach. I was
just sort of like generallycoaching.
And of course, as you know, youhave to have a niche. And when
it came time to figure out whatthat was, it just made sense for
(05:37):
me to become a boundaries coachbecause of my just utter
transformation as a result ofboundaries. And by then, every
client I'd worked with hadneeded help with boundaries. And
I found that I was really goodat helping people. And one of
the ways that I think I becameso good at it, only from
building my own boundaries, wasthat I learned through this sort
(05:59):
of haphazard meandering path intwelve Step Recovery to build
healthy boundaries.
It wasn't like somebody set medown and was like, Okay, we're
going to build boundaries.That's not what happened. It was
a byproduct of the work. Butafter I started to have
boundaries and I saw thisenormous impact, I started
reading about boundaries. And ithelped me to retroactively
understand what happened andwhat I went through and how I
(06:22):
was thinking and all that stuff.
And while I was doing thereading, I would take notes and
I often found myself doingdrawings to visually depict like
these concepts about boundaries.Well, those drawings turned into
handouts and those handoutsturned into a workbook, which is
now the backbone of myboundaries coaching program,
which is called Unshakable You,the fragmented to hold method.
(06:44):
And it's essentially like how Iwent from fifty something years
with no boundaries to havingsuch healthy boundaries that I
now coach people on healthyboundaries. So that's about as
micro aversion as I can giveyou.
Davina (06:59):
Good. Because I have some questions based on that.
There's a lot of feedback So thefirst question I have for you is
I wanna go back to where youmentioned your team and the
ripple effect on of you nothaving boundary having poor I
call them porous boundaries.Right?
Barb (07:14):
Yes.
Davina (07:14):
Yes. And how that affected your team. Could you
give us a little more insight?Because a lot of the people
listening to this podcast arewomen law firm owners. They own
a business.
And so understanding how theirbehaviors affect their team is
very important. Can you tell us,give us an example of some of
the things that, how that showedup, what it looked like?
Barb (07:35):
Yeah, for sure. So I want to start by saying, so my boss
was a faculty member at Yale andthen I was underneath her. And
then there was two divisions.There was the research and
evaluation part and then therewas the program part where we're
actually delivering service. Itwas mostly college access
programs.
So, we were providing servicesin schools to kids and parents
(07:56):
and teachers and stuff. And so,I was on both of those. So, than
I was the only person other thanthe boss that had purview over
everything. So, I impactedeverything. I had what I now
know was a nineteen yearcodependent relationship with my
boss, where she was justhonestly one of the most
unreliable people.
Obviously, she's a facultymember at Yale. She knows what
she's doing. But she didn'tfollow through on things. Didn't
(08:20):
like she'd set up an agenda fora meeting and never follow it.
She blew people off.
And I kept wanting her to bedifferent. And I had all this
frustration and all thisresentment and I would talk
about her behind her back, whichI now know is gossip. And I'm
not stupid, but I somehow didn'tunderstand that because I was
basically brought up, you don'tdirectly communicate with people
(08:42):
and say, hey, this isn't reallyworking. Can we come up with a
solution that doesn't? And so Icreated this culture of
expectation among my colleaguesbecause I was also there longer
than everybody except for theboss.
So not only did I have purview,but I had longevity.
Davina (08:57):
Security, yeah.
Barb (08:58):
So I created this culture of expectation that we don't
solve problems, we talk aboutthem. And we blame the boss for
not being the way that we want.So there was that whole
container that I created of thisis how we do things here. And
then when I didn't know how todirectly communicate with other
(09:20):
people, I learned how to do thatthrough building healthy
boundaries. Because boundariesare clear and not murky, your
communication about them must beclear and not murky.
So I learned to communicate muchmore effectively with people.
And stopping gossiping about theboss was, I can't tell you
(09:41):
enough about how important thatwas. And partly, like a huge
part of it was when I stoppedcomplaining about her, my
resentment against her went way,way, way, way, way down. Because
I was expecting her to bedifferent and she wasn't. And so
I get to
Davina (09:57):
go And you thought you could fix it. You thought you
could fix it if you
Barb (09:59):
I kept thinking if I contort myself in enough ways. I
mean, I had nineteen years ofevidence that it wasn't true,
but I still kept thinking likeshe's the problem. And I started
to realize I'm the problem. Andthen I kind of conveyed that to
everybody else. So what startedhappening was we started
communicating and kind of goingaround her instead of waiting
(10:20):
for her to be there.
So we started like when we're ina meeting, so the deal was if
she wasn't there then I chairedthe meetings. And I always
followed the agenda and keptpeople like, if you have
something that's outside ofwhat's on the agenda that goes
at the end of the meeting unlessit's super important and all
that. But we started reallycommunicating much more clearly.
(10:42):
We stopped worrying so muchabout offending people. I
learned to delegate.
I realized I'd gotten thefeedback so many times from all
my three sixty reviews that Idon't delegate. I don't ask for
help enough. And so I looked atwhy don't I delegate? I found
that there was three reasons.One is that I felt like nobody
(11:03):
could do it as good as me.
This is what I see in womenentrepreneurs all the time. Two,
my boss gave me stuff at thelast minute all of the time and
I hated the idea of doing thatto other people. So I just sort
of took the hit and tried to doit myself. And number three,
there were certain things that Ireally enjoyed doing and I
didn't want to delegate them.And I looked at this and I was
(11:24):
Okay, first of all, my team isamazing.
They're all super talented. Whywould I not delegate something
to them? Maybe they're not goingto do it the same as me, but
it's going to be great becausethey're all top notch. Number
two, all of my team knows. Idon't delegate things at the
last minute.
I don't do things at the lastminute. If it's coming to you at
the last minute, it's becauseit's from the boss and that's
(11:45):
just the way it is. And they getto push back on me if they want
to. And then number three, if Ihave lots of time, then I can do
the things I like doing. So thething that pops in my mind is I
loved designing flyers.
We have an administrativeassistant who is very talented
at that and actually designsbetter flyers than me. And also,
it's in her job description,right? So I started to be like,
(12:06):
I had to look at, like, I felt Iwas such like, I need to do
everything. I can't ask forhelp. There's something wrong
with asking for help.
So when I started doing thosethings, other people started
doing those things. And otherpeople started stepping up
because I was requiring them tostep up. So I could go on, but I
(12:26):
think I've given you some ideasof how that Yeah, for sure.
Davina (12:29):
For sure. The piece too that I found interesting as
somebody who I've been throughdecades of therapy, you've been
through decades of therapy. Itwas like what, forty years of
therapy and personaldevelopment, you said?
Barb (12:44):
Thirty seven. Yeah. Thirty seven years. Okay. Great.
And then continued after that.Yeah.
Davina (12:49):
So I am really curious about, because I've recently
been following someone who istherapist and she's been really
changing my thoughts abouttherapy and it's been very
interesting. But what is it togo through that many years of
therapy and never hear the wordcodependency? Surprises me that
(13:10):
you never did. And what is it doyou think with therapy that was
different that the 12 step sortof program for you as a
codependent made the difference?
Barb (13:24):
Yeah, I think, frankly, I had a lot of mediocre
therapists, to be perfectlyfrank with you. They were
sounding boards for me. Thetherapist that I was with when I
got into recovery, I found outshe was a trauma therapist. So
my main program is called AdultChildren of Alcoholics and
Dysfunctional Families. It's atrauma recovery program where
you reparent yourself and youuse the 12 steps to recover.
(13:47):
I didn't know that I had trauma.I didn't know that I suffered
from childhood trauma andintergenerational family
dysfunction, but she knew andshe didn't tell me. When I
finally
Davina (13:57):
had to remember kept just letting you talk about it
and hoping you would finallypick it up.
Barb (14:00):
Right. And then when I finally figured it out and
started going to recovery andthen I developed the wherewithal
to say something to her, like,why didn't you tell me? And she
said something like, I don'tfeel like it's my place to tell
people who they are, to diagnosethem. And I remember thinking,
wait, I didn't say this becauseI still didn't have the ability
to communicate directly. Ithought, if it's not your job,
(14:24):
whose job is it?
But I think there are sometherapists who feel like if
people come up with something ontheir own, they're much more
likely to buy into it. And thatmay be true. But you could
literally have saved me years ofmy life if you had said you
might want to look intocodependence. Yeah. So I think
there's that.
And then the 12 steps ofrecovery, I think, are really
powerful for many reasons. Soit's a technology is really what
(14:47):
it is. So it's a systematic 12steps. You do it in this order.
This is how it works.
Number two, it's done in a groupsetting. So you have people all
along the pipeline, peoplewho've been in the program for
years, people who've justrecently started and brand new
people. So we're all learningfrom each other from an
experiential standpoint. WhereasI think a lot of therapists
(15:09):
become therapists because theyhave their own issues, but they
never tell you anything abouttheir own stories because
they're supposed to beobjective, which I don't think
is really possible as a humanbeing. And so you're learning in
a group setting.
You've got multiple points ofsupport with those people. And
then number three, twelve StepRecovery is actually spiritually
(15:30):
based, which means it doesn'thave to do with God, but for
some people it does. It meansI'm part of something greater
than myself and I know it. Andso we're dealing with ourselves
as these spiritual beings in thecontext of this group of people
who've gone through the samedrama and trauma and chaos that
(15:52):
we have and have healed and canshare that wisdom. And we're
following this 12 step processthat's been laid out and has
worked for millions of peoplearound the world for multiple
things.
Davina (16:05):
Right. So now as a boundary coach, I think a lot of
people get confused, especiallywhen people are doing coaching
in any sort of relational orinterpersonal development kind
of space. Business coaching ispretty much understand. Coaching
is this framework. But when itcomes to this, I think that
(16:28):
sometimes a lot of peopleconfuse coaching and therapy.
They think, oh, we have peoplewho wanna be therapists, who are
coaching, quote, quote coaching.And I even get that as a
business coach. When I firststarted out, it's very easy to
get sort of sucked into thatthing like a therapist, right?
But you're not a therapist. Andexplain to us how your work as a
(16:53):
boundaries coach differs thatsort of world and from 12 step
recovery, right?
Because people may come from alot of different experiences.
Barb (17:03):
Yeah. So I have a very structured system. I have a
whole curriculum that'smultimedia that I take you
through. So it includesPowerPoints, podcast episodes,
articles, and a workbook. Sothere's multiple ways for you to
take in and learn and integratethe material.
The majority of the coachingsessions I do with them is the
(17:27):
actual talking about theirspecific situations, issues,
relationships, etc, and helpingthem apply what they're learning
in all this other work to theirspecific life and helping them
like troubleshoot. And I willsay, like, all of it's valuable.
But of course, the most valuablepart is the one on one with me
(17:48):
where they get to explain theirscenario. And I can say to them,
and of course, I do so gently,things acting like a victim, as
if you have no choices and youactually do. And the reason I
can spot that, Divina, is victimmentality is hands down the
biggest paradigm shift of myrecovery.
And I'm not the quintessentialvictim. I never was like, Woe is
(18:10):
me. The world is against me.I've always felt like a powerful
woman of agency. And yet I wasgoing, oh, if only he would
change, then everything would beOkay.
And then when I did myrelationship inventory in 12
Step Recovery, I saw that Ithought that about every
relationship I ever had. And Istarted to see, well, wait,
that's me acting like I havenothing to do with the status of
(18:32):
any of my relationships. Andthat just doesn't make any
sense. So I can point out veryspecifically, like this is what
you're thinking. Here's anotherway to think about it.
Here's a way for you to startactually making choices and go
from being someone who'sreactive to life to someone
who's proactive in their life.And I think what happens for
(18:55):
people as they build healthyboundaries is they're getting to
know themselves. Like, who am I?Where do I end and other people
begin? What do I like, want,need and prefer?
What's Okay with me and what'snot Okay with me? And for me,
the biggest impact is what haveI been doing in my life that's
created chaos or drama orexacerbated the already existing
(19:16):
chaos? So the gossiping is areally good example. I think of
it as I was lobbing bombs intomy own life, but I didn't even
know it. And so I call theseboundaries of self containment.
These are things I either needto contain or stop doing
altogether. And I would say thatthose type of boundaries
specifically cleaned up 85% ofthe trauma and and chaos and all
(19:39):
that stuff in my life.
Davina (19:40):
I think it's so interesting too, because as
people who are codependent, andI had that diagnosed years ago,
decades ago, I've done a lot toovercome that. But one of the
things that we think we'redoing, and this is very common,
is we're fixing or we'rehelping. We're fixing or we're
(20:01):
helping. I'm trying to fix. I'mtrying to help.
And so if you say, I've I can myidea will fix this problem, and
you have an idea about otherpeople's lives about how to fix
it. Red flag. Red flag. Right?
Barb (20:14):
And the temptation to
Davina (20:15):
fix it because you feel like you know something that
they don't. The temptation tofix it is there to fix it for
them. You're talking aboutboundaries, give us an idea. I
want to go deeper into thebusiness boundaries
specifically, but tell me thedifferent areas where you cover
boundaries and kind of whatdistinguishes them.
Barb (20:33):
Yeah. So what I found, you know, as I mentioned to you
before the call, I do a lot ofnetworking with women
entrepreneurs. I identifystrongly as an entrepreneur
myself, and many suck withboundaries. So this means things
like they're not charging atleast market rate. They are not
delegating things.
They think they need to doeverything themselves. They are
(20:55):
absolutely paralyzed asking forhelp. It feels somehow like
they're stepping down a level.Know for me, to ask for help was
absolutely enormous in my life.Now I'm like, oh my God, help is
awesome.
I love help. They don't let goof toxic employees, vendors,
clients, etcetera. And theyreally don't take good care of
themselves. So women suffer fromthis idea that is somehow
(21:18):
selfish. Like I actually,Devina, had a client say to me,
I'd rather be called a whorethan selfish.
Like what is going on
Davina (21:25):
in Wow, that's so powerful. Wow.
Barb (21:27):
Right. Right. Like, it is not selfish to take care of
yourself. It is selfpreservation. And I love the
metaphor of this.
I don't know if you know whoAshley Kirkwood is. She wrote
the book Speak Your Way to Cash.She's actually an attorney by
training. And she says, you wantto pour from the overflow rather
from an empty cup. Well, theonly way you're going to have
(21:49):
overflow is if you fill your cupfirst.
So just like in an airplane,they say, hey, if the oxygen
mask falls down first, you putthe falls down, you put it on
yourself first if you arehelping someone. What they don't
say is because if you're passedout, you can't help other
people. If your cup is empty,what you're giving to other
people is not good. So you getto take really good care of
(22:13):
yourself and pour into yourbusiness and your clients and
your families and your lovedones from the overflow. But you
are in charge of filling yourown cup.
You can't wait around forcircumstances to be right. So
you need to make sure thatyou're doing something. And when
I say fill your own cup, when Isay self care, I mean what fuels
(22:35):
you? What gives you energy? Sowhat gives you energy might be
completely different than whatgives me energy.
I do things like meditate, pray,yoga, go for walks in nature,
journal, do creative projectsand stuff like that. Those are
things that fuel me. Read. Ilove the Hallmark channel. I
used to be like parent I used tobe I'm a former closeted
(22:55):
Hallmark fan, actually, becauseI used to be like, oh, people
are going to think that's sappy.
It is sappy. And now I don'tcare if people think that
because I like it. There'salways a happy ending. I used
to, before recovery, I watchedLaw and Order, CSI, Criminal
Minds, and I was activated allthe time. And now I'm like, Oh,
that's so sweet.
So that's a good example of myrecovery. Before Criminal Minds,
(23:19):
after Hallmark.
Davina (23:20):
True crime documentaries. Those of us true
crime documentaries. Of when youtalk about so I wanna dig a
little deeper into boundariesbecause I think boundaries is
really the primary self carethat you're talking about as
well. I mean, we just start withjust boundaries. Yeah.
So I wanna talk about someexamples of what boundaries look
like in a work setting and workenvironment, especially if
(23:45):
you're the boss. Because I thinkthere's a lot of social media
out there telling employees andcorporations you need to set
these boundaries. Tell your bossyou're not working at this time
and that time and all this. Andthis is a Gen Z phenomenon
that's come out. But I see a lotof women law firm owners that
really struggle to setboundaries, not only with their
(24:07):
prospective clients and clients,but also with their employees.
So, to give you an example of,recently somebody was talking
about, an employee, I mean, aclient who was calling their
office all the time and kind ofberating the team because they
(24:29):
wanted stuff done and all ofthis kind of stuff. And the
berating the attorney and herassistant who was taking the
call and having such strugglewith how do I draw and then
enforce that boundary? Becauseit's not just enough to draw it.
You have to actually stick toit.
Barb (24:47):
Enforce. Right. Which is that's the hard part.
Davina (24:49):
So what other kind of you know, what other examples do
you have of sort of where yousee entrepreneurs or business
owners, particularly lawyersstruggle with boundaries?
Barb (24:58):
So I think that's a really good one that, you know, having
clients who want the scope ofwork to expand and they don't
want to have to pay for it. Ithink that's pretty classic. And
so if you think about it,policies and procedures are
boundaries. They tell you thisis the purview of the work that
we're going to be doing. And soI want to give this tip, and
(25:19):
that is that we want to setboundaries as soon as we know
that we need them orpreemptively.
And so there's a saying, thebest time to plant a tree was
thirty years ago. The next timeis today. The best time to set a
boundary with someone is beforeyou start working with them. The
next best time is today. So toprevent that kind of thing from
(25:39):
happening, you have policies andprocedures in your contract with
your client and you tell them,like, this is how much service
that you're going to get forthis amount of money and
anything beyond that we're goingto have to renegotiate.
And if they are telling you,hey, I need to do this and do
that, then you could saysomething like this is fantastic
that you love our work and youwant us to do more with you.
This is outside the purview ofwhat we've agreed for. So either
(26:02):
we can renegotiate the scope ofwork or you're going to have to
get that service elsewhere. Andsome people might think, oh my
God, that's terrible. I can'tsay that.
That's cruel. Like this is abusiness. And if you really want
to be there for your otherclients and you don't want to be
depleted by this person and youdon't want to resent your
client, then you need to clearlycommunicate to them. This is why
(26:22):
doing it ahead of time is muchbetter. And so, think that the
work life balance is the otherthing I've heard from attorneys
all the time is that because,like, let's say that you're an
associate and you want to workyour way up to partner, then you
know, like if a partner comes toyou at five on Friday with file
and say, I need this on my deskby nine Monday morning, you
(26:45):
might feel like, oh my God, Idon't have a choice.
Well, you actually made thechoice by choosing to be an
associate who wants to work upto partner. And so you get to
let go of any like resentment oranything like that against the
firm or the profession or thepartner and take that energy
that you might be upset aboutand put it towards doing the
(27:07):
work. Or you could say,actually, this isn't the
lifestyle that I want. And Ithink, you know, speaking of
lifestyle, the way that I startwith all of my coaching clients,
Divina, is I have them start bygoing through an exercise to
determine their top five valuesand then they use those values
as guideposts or almost likeguardrails for how to make
decisions and how to setboundaries in their lives
(27:29):
because your values are yoursfor a reason. They didn't come
up for no reason, and so theyshould guide the way that you
live.
And I think this is important inbusiness too. So let me
Davina (27:42):
scroll back to the example that you used. So in the
scenario you talked about, ourlisteners would be the boss of
that associate. And so if wehave a boss of that associate
who says, Well, I worked fortytwo hours last week and forty
four the week before, so thisweek I wanna take off early,
which that's part time forlawyers. Forty hours is part
(28:03):
time for most lawyers. But thisidea of, well, I worked a couple
hours extra, so this week I wantto leave early or whatever.
And then you've got the boss whohas spent their whole career
putting in extra time and workedto get the client work done and
the client satisfied. And thatmeans maybe an eighty hour
(28:25):
weeks. How does a bosscommunicate those? What's the
best way for bosses tocommunicate those boundaries?
And then I would say, hold thoseboundaries.
Barb (28:35):
Yeah. Yeah. So communicating them starts when
you hire the person. Like, thisis the expectation that you're
going to work however many hoursare required. And it's not based
on how many hours you worked theweek before.
It's based on the work that getsdone. Are you in for that? And
if they are, then you justremind them that this is what's
going to happen. And if theycome to you, you can say, as a
(28:58):
reminder, here's your contractor your job description or
whatever it is, and this is thejob. And if this isn't the job
that you want, then you mightneed to look elsewhere.
So you do like immediately. Youneed to do it as soon as it
happens, the very first timethat it happens. And you can
say, listen, I hear you and Iget that you don't want to do
(29:18):
that. But the reality is this isthe job. And the problem, like a
lot of people think, all I needto know is the words.
If I just have the right words,I could get people to listen to
me and respect my patterns.Having the right words is really
important. This is why my moduletwo is communication, right? But
just because you have the rightwords doesn't mean you can stand
(29:39):
firm in your boundaries. That'sthe problem.
Because the thing that causesmost people to either not set
boundaries or to cave on them isguilt and shame. They feel
guilty and shameful aboutsetting boundaries with people.
And I think this is especiallyso for women because we are
acculturated to be like thegivers and the helpers and the
(30:00):
caretakers and all that sort ofthing. And we feel like we have
to somehow take care of thepeople that work for us. And you
actually don't.
They're adults and it's theirjob. And if this isn't the right
job for them, then they're theone that gets to leave. So
standing firm in your boundariesmeans you have to believe. You
have to have the big picture inmind, and you have to believe
(30:23):
that the firm that you have setup is meeting the needs of your
employees in the professionalways that they need them to
meet. If they want theirpersonal needs met, they get to
take charge of that.
And so I think what I haven'tsaid so far that I think is
important to share here is Ithink the crux of what shifted
(30:46):
for me to go from fiftysomething years with no
boundaries to having suchhealthy boundaries is that I
came to care more what I thinkof myself than what other people
do. And this doesn't mean,Davina, that I don't care what
other people think of me. Ofcourse I do. What it means is I
used to be willing to throw myintegrity out the window. I
would say yes to things I didn'twant to do.
(31:07):
I would say no to things that Iactually wanted to do, either
because I was afraid to bejudged or I didn't have time. I
would act like things were okaywith me. I would not speak up
when things really bothered meor they went against my values.
So, I was, that's called lying.And then, I was manipulating
people by being a peoplepleaser.
So, I was doing things to getthem to like me. It doesn't mean
(31:30):
I didn't want to be helpful. Ofcourse, I did. But wanting to be
helpful doesn't explain that weget to the point where we're
over giving and we're resentfuland all that stuff. So here I
was lying and manipulating.
I'm no longer willing to do thatfor someone's approval. Like,
it's more important for me to bean honest woman of integrity
(31:52):
than it is for you to like me. Iwant you to like me, but I
don't, with claws, need you tolike me the way that I used to.
Well, and
Davina (31:58):
it's interesting you say that because I don't think that,
that's incredible selfawareness. When you say, I
realized I was lying andmanipulating. I think most
people don't think they're lyingand manipulating. They are
acting in a way that along theirway in their life, they've been
trained as sort of how tointeract with people. So it's
the self reflection piece that Ithink is so powerful and we
(32:22):
often don't do.
When we think about peopleworking for us or our clients
working with us or whatever,looking and saying, how am I
doing that? Of the things I wantto touch on with that is, and
the thought just went right outof my head. You were saying
(32:42):
something about keep talking andthen I'll figure that out. You
were saying, I wanna talk aboutthis boss relationship and this
idea that this boundaries withemployees and what those
boundaries mean. There'ssomething along the line of, oh,
(33:05):
I know what it is.
Boundaries, people often havethis idea of you're not doing
what I want. So you're crossingmy boundaries. So I want you to
talk a little bit more aboutboundary setting and in a in a
work environment when you're theboss. Mhmm. What what boundaries
(33:28):
give me an example of whatboundaries look like and how
they can.
I think some people will look atit and say, well, I set my
boundaries, you cross them,therefore, you're out of here.
As opposed to understandingboundaries really are not a
weapon, boundaries really areabout being real about who you
(33:48):
are or whatever it is. So canyou explore that a little bit?
Barb (33:51):
Yeah. So healthy boundaries are proactive, not
reactive. So you don't set aboundary after the fact. Like a
healthy person does not set aboundary after the fact because
somebody did somethingegregious, right? They are
proactive and they're like, thisis, you know, like the job
description or the expectationsfor the work is you setting a
(34:14):
boundary.
And then the consequence is whathappens if they don't. So, you
know, let's just use theexample. They came to you and
they're like, Oh, well, I workedforty four hours the week before
last and I worked forty two, soI want to work less this week.
Well, you say, Okay, well, theexpectation is not actually the
number of hours per week. It'sthe work that gets done.
(34:35):
And so my expectation is thatyou're going to get this work
done. And if that doesn'thappen, then we're going to make
note of this and you're going toget written up for that. Like,
there's probably a policy oflike, if you get written up
three times or something likethat. And I hate
Davina (34:51):
to I think a lot of people don't have those
policies. They need them. Andthat's where when they own their
own So those entrepreneurs oftendon't have I'm always talking
about how policies, procedures,contracts, all these things are
leadership tools. They'reactually leadership tools.
Barb (35:07):
And they're boundaries. They're like, here's the
expectations. You know, like,when you have healthy
boundaries, you essentiallyteach people, this is how you
can expect to interact from me.Or the way that I like to say
is, if you want the best of me,this is what is going to happen.
Is like, if you want the best ofme as a boss, you're going to
work on the projects that yousaid you're going to work on.
(35:27):
You're going to give me lots ofnotice and you're never going to
blindside me about things, thatsort of thing. You're going to
tell them, this is what Iappreciate in an associate.
These are the kinds of thingsthat are going to get you
promoted. Like, this is what'sgoing to work for you. And the
other, I think the distinction,especially for women, is these
are not your family members.
These are your employees. Andyou need to treat them like
(35:50):
family members and you're theboss. You're not their sister.
You're not their friend. You'renot just their colleague.
You're their boss. And thatmeans something. And so you need
to act like a boss, which meansyou need to learn how to have
difficult conversations and youneed to have them as soon as
possible. You do not let thingsbecome toxic. You deal with them
(36:11):
as soon as they come up.
That's Yeah,
Davina (36:15):
you hit on that family piece. And I think this is
something I see with mostentrepreneurs, especially women,
no matter what business they'rein, is when you start out,
you're so this is your baby,your little seed. There's so
much fear around whether it'sgonna grow and and you're
worried every day. Am I gonnaget clients? Am I gonna grow
this the way I want?
(36:36):
Am I going to make the money?And then that first person that
you hire is your help. They justbecome your right hand. And we
often see this with that, thisperson has been with me for
years and now I've hired otherpeople and this person is
becoming a problem, but I don'twant to give up on her because
she was there with me in thebeginning when it was so hard.
(36:58):
That sort of thing.
And we see this with women andother women, different than with
men. Having worked with men, youknow, men don't stress so much
over giving feedback aboutsomebody's performance or firing
(37:19):
them quickly because they're notworking out. Whereas women wanna
try to make it work. We wannatry to fix it. Wanna try to see
if we can salvage therelationship.
Have you seen these kinds ofthings that, and also what I
talked about, you were talkingabout family.
Barb (37:36):
Yeah.
Davina (37:36):
That starting person that was with Yeah.
Barb (37:40):
Yeah. So what is coming to mind is there's a book called
Buy Back Your Time by Dan,forgetting his last name, is
fantastic. He actually helpsstart Really, really good book.
And he talks about how the CEOof the startup, when they go
public, they often don't stickaround because they're the
(38:00):
starter and that'sheartbreaking. But the board
knows, like that person got youto here, but they're not going
to get you to go forward.
So it's understood in thestartup business, this is what
happens. Well, what that meansis when you start up a law firm,
the first person you hire isn'tnecessarily going to be the
person that can get you startedis not necessarily the person
that's going to grow you and getyou to the next level. So
(38:22):
knowing that ahead of time, Ithink this is one reason they
say that when you start to growyour business, bringing human
resources firm on board doesn'tmean you have to have them in
house, but that can help youthink through the long term,
like what kind of policies andprocedures do I have? And if
you're doing regular annual,semiannual evaluations and
(38:46):
you're talking about like, okay,here's where we want to go. If
it's pretty clear this personisn't going to grow into this
role, you can let them know.
It seems like where this firm isgrowing might not continue to be
a good fit for you. So if youkind of go into it knowing that,
I know that it's too late formany people because they started
their firm X number of yearsago.
Davina (39:05):
And now they already have this right hand person and
this right hand person maybe, ina lot of cases I've seen, sort
of sabotage going on. There'sthis feeling of I'm close to the
boss. I'm the right hand of theboss, and now you're coming in
and you don't know her like Ido. Right.
Barb (39:21):
Right. Yeah.
Davina (39:21):
That kind of thing.
Barb (39:22):
Yeah. And I think the solution to just about all these
problems is directlycommunicating with people about
what is going on, like going tothem and saying, I can't tell
you how much I appreciate whatyou've done to help me build
this business to where it's at.But it seems to me like where
this business is going is notreally where you're best suited.
(39:44):
Like, what's your feedback aboutthat? Or are you willing to,
whatever, get professionaldevelopment, continuing
education, whatever is required?
But also not letting them dothat thing where they're like,
I'm like this with the boss and,you know, I've got her ear and
nobody else does. Like, youcan't play favorites like that.
(40:06):
Especially not if you're like,this person's an administrative
assistant and then everybodyelse are attorneys. There's a
certain like, you know, attorneycamaraderie that needs to
happen. And if you're puttingsomeone else in the middle of
that, it can be reallydisruptive.
But it's hard for people tothink like this when they've
never started a law firm before,which I'm sure is where you come
(40:27):
along.
Davina (40:28):
Right. Well, and having the piece where they're
establishing is this is thefamily. I brought this example
up because of the family piecethat you mentioned. This idea,
you're so such in a vulnerablein such a vulnerable place when
you're starting your businessand you're hiring that first one
or two people And this idea thatwe're family, we're going to and
(40:51):
and really that's a point whereyou need to start setting those
boundaries and thatdifferentiating on the boss. And
what we see happen oftentimes iswe're all friends.
Like, you're working as friend.We're gonna go out. I I know all
about your boyfriend drama. Theyknow all about my, you know,
husband's situation. And, youknow, we're all going out for
(41:13):
cocktails to bond, that kind ofthing.
And I think the intention isvery good, wanting to treat
people as human beings and careabout them. But I think one of
the things that comes up forwomen that doesn't come up for a
minute as much is that when wewere growing up, women were
(41:34):
taught to sort of compete withother girls. So girls compete
with other girls. If you had abest friend and a third friend
came into the picture, it didn'tgo very well. Somebody got their
feelings hurt.
The games that we played wereone on one kinds of games rather
than team things. I know that'schanged some since my
generation, but that idea ofcomparison with women. And so
(41:57):
when you get into a workenvironment, you may be the
lawyer, but you're also hiringpeople. And then I often see it
happen where women arechallenging and they're saying,
you think you're better than meand you're not. You have not in
a direct way, but in a behaviorway.
Who do you think you are? Youthink you're better than me
(42:18):
because you went to law school,you became a lawyer, all that.
I'm just as good as you. I'mgonna go to law school too.
Well, great.
But that's a lot of what we seeamong women is this idea. And
that doesn't mean that that'sthe case across the board. I'm
just pointing it out for thosewho have experienced it or are
experiencing. Have you seenthat, you know, in the
(42:38):
entrepreneurial world?
Barb (42:41):
Yeah. I mean, I don't see that so I mean, it's probably
happening, but it's notsomething that I actually see
directly from other people. ButI would say that people who are
secure don't make comments like,Oh, you think that you're better
than me? Then people I thinkyou're making the comments, to
(43:04):
my No, in their minds. They'renot even thinking that.
And also people who are securedon't act superior to other
people, and they don't. And so Ithink that a lot of this stuff
could be prevented ahead oftime, but it's too late for so
many people. But the reality issitting down and having a direct
(43:25):
conversation, perhaps having aretreat of your people that's
facilitated by an outside personand letting them know, like
these are some of the issuesthat are going on. How do we
heal this in such a way that wecan gel again as a team, as
human beings, and still beprofessionals together and do
(43:46):
the work? I think if it's gottento that point, then you might
need some kind of outsideintervention like that.
But I think it starts with whothe leader is. Like, if you
personally do not have healthyboundaries, your business is not
going to have healthy boundariesand your employees are not going
to have I mean, maybe one or twoof them might, but in general,
(44:08):
they're not going to havehealthy boundaries.
Davina (44:10):
So I guess that's my point because I have heard this
very scenario that I'm sharingwith you and it's not something
overt that people say. They'renot saying,
Barb (44:18):
but there's
Davina (44:19):
a challenge in the way they're challenging the owner of
the firm. There's a challengethat is happening that indicates
that there is that sort of innerdialogue of, I have to prove to
you that we are equal. And sowhat I'm looking for is a way,
how do women law firm ownersdeal with this disrespect really
(44:43):
that comes from an employeebecause they're saying, you
don't get to tell me what to do.It's like life literally. I get
to tell you what to do, right?
Barb (44:51):
Yeah. So we command respect. And I don't mean
command like, you're going to dothis. I mean, we command
respect, which comes frominternally. You can't command
respect if you don't feel selfrespect.
If you feel like it's not myplace to tell them what to do
and you're the law firm owner,why are you a law firm owner if
you don't feel like you shouldbe telling them what to do?
Davina (45:13):
I think many people just say, I'll just do it myself and
do it. This is your delegationthing you're talking about. They
just say, I don't want deal withthe hassle. I'll just do it
myself. And
Barb (45:23):
I just do it myself does not get you to being a
successful law firm owner. Yeah.Like nobody gets to the top
without other people. NobodyLike, I think it's Arnold
Schwarzenegger said, There's nosuch thing as a self made man.
There's no such thing as a selfmade woman.
Like, he didn't get to be Mr.Universe or whatever he was by
himself. Nobody gets to the topby themselves, right? But you
(45:50):
are the leader and you set thetone for the organization. So if
you feel disrespected by youremployees, that's on you.
They're not going to change onyour own. You have to start
commanding respect and saying, Iknow that up until now I have
tolerated XYZ behavior, butgoing forward, here's what's
(46:10):
going to happen.
Davina (46:11):
Yeah. So commanding respect, I think this is the
point that where I'm trying toget with this is that part of
commanding respect isboundaries, is this idea of
boundaries. And also you talk alot about this and I want people
to make sure they walk away withthis realization is that when
you're talking about boundaries,communication, direct
(46:34):
communication, not subtlecommunication or manipulation,
manipulative communication, butdirect communication and is a
big piece of boundaries. Justhaving like your own, like a
little internal boundarieswithout articulating what they
are in any given situation is aproblem. And it's not a text of,
(47:02):
don't do that.
You're talking about human tohuman conversation and
interaction. Right.
Barb (47:10):
Yeah. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point
about texting. I am not a fan oftexting anything that is
potentially difficult or youknow, there's so much that's
lost in text. There's no likevoice inflection or tone or any
of that stuff. So even if youcan't see them, then call and
(47:31):
leave a voice memo so they canat least get the intonation of
your voice and make it reallyclear.
There's way too much importantinformation that is being People
are having relationships viatext nowadays. And I get, you
know, for some people they haveto do that for whatever reason.
But if you need to have animportant conversation with
somebody, please don't do it ontext.
Davina (47:48):
If you're the leader of a business, that really is not
the same with email, you know,before text was email and
there's a danger in that becauseI understand with attorneys, we
like to document things andthat's okay to follow-up with
such a thing. But when you'redealing with your employees on
an interpersonal level or anyother types of boundaries that
you're setting or any otherclear expectations you're
(48:10):
setting, they really need to beconversation.
Barb (48:15):
Yeah, yeah. And I think having regular one on ones with
your employees is reallyvaluable. And it could be a
touch base fifteen minutes aweek or every two weeks or
something like that. And thenyou set specific meetings for
topical things if you need to dothat. But having a one on one
with people on a regular basisso that you're continually
feeding back to them, this isworking really well, this is not
(48:38):
working really well.
And they can also feed to you,like the way that you're doing
this isn't really working forme, or I have a suggestion for
how we could change that. Butthat keeping communication
flowing, like everybody knowscommunication is the key to good
relationships. We just don'tknow how to do it. Like, I truly
believe, Denina, that I was agood communicator. I was a
program coordinator runningprograms in up to 25 schools in
(49:02):
three school districts at atime.
So I kept the communicationflowing. And that may be so that
in that way I was a goodcommunicator. But when I got
into recovery, I realized, oh myGod, I was doing a lot of
beating around the bush,implying things, expecting
people should know things,expecting that people should
read my mind or trying like Ididn't understand what somebody
(49:22):
meant, so I filled in the gapstypically with some kind of
negative spin on it. And now ifI'm not really clear, what does
somebody mean? I say, I'm notsure what you mean by that.
Can you explain or can you giveme more information? I'm a
little confused. And I know now,like if I think people should
know something, I'm wrongbecause if somebody should know
something, then they would knowit. So you come right out and
(49:45):
tell them. I was doing a meetingat a church group one time and
this woman was like, after fortyyears of marriage, he should
know blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, well, apparentlyhe doesn't. And so we take it.
She was taking it personallylike it was a personal affront
to her that it was purposely notdoing the thing. Everybody
thinks differently, especiallymen and women. People retain
different things.
(50:06):
People attend to differentthings. So if you think someone
should know something, then comeright out and tell them, right?
Don't beat around the bush. Saydirectly what you mean to the
person so that there's no error,you know, there's no
mistranslation error going onthere. And we somehow believe,
(50:26):
especially women, that it's likerude or mean to directly
communicate.
I know that when I started doingit, I was just like, Oh my God,
this is awful. This is mean. Andwhat I now know is it saves a
lot of time and people trust mebecause they know I'm going to
tell them the truth. Thatdoesn't work for me.
Davina (50:46):
That's huge. Discuss that with my clients all the
time, especially if you're theboss, right? You own the You
need to be communicatingdirectly. I grew up in the Deep
South where women are taught tosugarcoat everything. Want to
serve it up with a little bit
Barb (51:05):
of onion, Sugarcoating is the play.
Davina (51:09):
I was like, this doesn't work because people aren't
understanding what you'resaying. You think it's so clear
and it also feels manipulative,even though it's not intended to
be that way. And in a workenvironment, it just doesn't
work. I mean, you really have tobe a, a, you know, much more
direct. And when you first startdoing that, it does feel mean if
(51:32):
you've been taught that that isrude or not, but we can be
direct and be kind.
Absolutely. The kindest thingyou could do is be direct.
Barb (51:41):
Yes. Clear boundaries are clear and kind.
Davina (51:46):
Barb, thanks so much for being here and talking with me
about this topic today. Know ourlisteners are going to get a lot
out of it. Tell us how we canconnect with you and find out
more information about workingwith you.
Barb (51:56):
Absolutely. So my favorite place to hang out on social
media is on Instagram. I'm atHigher Power Coaching. You can
find me on LinkedIn also at BarbNangle. That's N as in neighbor,
A N G L E.
And then I do offer, AccelerateYour Boundaries, the Fast Track
Starter Kit. It'sboundariesstarterkit.com. It's
free and it's a good way to justget started.
Davina (52:19):
Very good. Thanks so much for being here and I look
forward to continuing ourconversation in the future.
Barb (52:24):
Excellent. Thank you so much, Devina. This has been
great. I loved it.
Intro (52:29):
If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in
your business and your life,then you'll want to visit us at
wealthywomanlawyer.com to learnmore about how we help our
clients create wealth generatinglaw firms with ease.
Welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. What
Davina (00:05):
if
Intro (00:05):
you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask
them about growing their firms,managing resources like time,
team, and systems, masteringmoney issues, and more? Then
take an insight or two to helpyou build a wealth generating
law firm. Each week, your host,Devina Frederick, takes an
in-depth look at how to thinklike a CEO, attract clients who
(00:25):
you love to serve and will payyou on time, and create a
profitable, sustainable firm youlove. Devina is founder and CEO
of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and hergoal is to give you the
information you need to scaleyour law firm business from 6 to
7 figures in gross annualrevenue so you can fully fund
and still have time to enjoy thelifestyle of your dreams. Now
(00:48):
here's Devina.
Davina (00:50):
Hello, and welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer
podcast. I'm your host, DevinaFrederick, and my guest today is
Barb Nangle. Barb is aboundaries coach, speaker,
author, and podcaster. She has amaster's degree in sociology and
worked for nineteen years atYale University as a program
coordinator for urban educationprevention and policy research.
(01:11):
While working at Yale, she hit acodependent bottom, which landed
her in 12 step recovery whereshe learned to build healthy
boundaries.
She was astonished at the rippleeffect of her boundaries on her
team and her project.Communication, morale, and
effectiveness improveddramatically. This showed how
(01:32):
when one person changes thedynamics of their interactions,
everything around them changes.Formerly masking her struggles
with substance use andovereating, she shed over 100
pounds and confronted her deepseated negativity and fear. In
02/2017, she got laid off fromYale and found her way into the
world of startups, innovation,and entrepreneurship in New
(01:55):
Haven and at Yale.
Driven by desire for growth andsocial justice, through her
business, Barb now empowersprofessional women to break
patterns of self neglect.Through boundary coaching,
speaking, and her podcast,Fragmented to Whole, she guides
women to reclaim their power andsay no to what no longer serves
them, fostering a world whereinner change drives societal
(02:18):
impact. Please join me inwelcoming Barb Nangle to the
Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast.Hi, Barb. It's good to see you
today.
Barb (02:26):
Hi, Davina. It's really good to be here. I'm very
excited for this conversation.
Davina (02:30):
Me too. Well, you are a boundaries coach. So I have a
lot of questions about that.Want to get into it. First
though, tell us a little bitabout yourself and how you came
to be a boundaries coach.
Barb (02:44):
Sure. And I will try to do the micro version because
there's a lot to it. I just wantto start by saying like I'm a
sociologist by training. I havea master's degree in sociology.
I worked for nineteen years atYale University as a program
coordinator for urban educationprevention and policy research.
And seventeen years into mycareer at Yale, I hit a
(03:04):
codependent bottom. And just incase people don't know what that
means, welcome to the club, Ididn't know what it meant
either, even though I had read agajillion self help books and
been in therapy and done allkinds of personal development
work. So a codependent person issomeone who is essentially
fixated on everything outsidethemselves. Like, what's he
doing? What's she doing?
What do they need? What does theperson need? What does that
(03:25):
situation need? The classiccodependent is in some kind of a
relationship with an addict oran alcoholic. And I landed in
twelve Step Recovery forcodependents, and that led me to
get into a couple of othertwelve Step Recovery programs.
And all of the decades ofpersonal development that I did
before recovery sort ofscratched the surface of the
(03:48):
iceberg of my life, Divina,whereas recovery melted the
iceberg. So, I learned so manythings. I learned so many things
about myself that I wasn't awareof despite all that personal
development work. But I thinkfor me, because my core wound is
codependence, learning how tobuild healthy boundaries changed
everything. So I was stillworking at Yale when that
(04:09):
happened and what I started tosee was there was this ripple
effect of my boundaries on myteam and the project.
And I was like, wait a minute,like none of these people are in
recovery. What is going on here?And it really just goes to show
that when one person changes thedynamics of their interactions,
things around them change. Soone of the many myths about
(04:31):
boundaries is people think if Ihave healthy boundaries, I'll be
able to control other people.No, you won't.
Who you will be able to controlis you, and then that will have
a ripple effect. So you can'tcontrol other people, but you
can influence them by settinglimits and holding those limits
and also setting limits foryourself. So I stayed at Yale
(04:52):
for another couple of years. Iwas laid off and through a
series of wonderfullyserendipitous events, I found my
way into the world of startups,innovation, and entrepreneurship
at Yale and in New Haven.Started my own business, very
quickly started my own podcast,which is called Fragmented to
Whole Life Lessons from 12 StepRecovery.
And I started it really notthinking it would have anything
(05:14):
to do with my business. It wasall about taking all of this
wisdom I was learning about inrecovery and bringing it out
into the world. And now thatpodcast is the number one way
that I get clients. Initially, Iwasn't a boundaries coach. I was
just sort of like generallycoaching.
And of course, as you know, youhave to have a niche. And when
it came time to figure out whatthat was, it just made sense for
(05:37):
me to become a boundaries coachbecause of my just utter
transformation as a result ofboundaries. And by then, every
client I'd worked with hadneeded help with boundaries. And
I found that I was really goodat helping people. And one of
the ways that I think I becameso good at it, only from
building my own boundaries, wasthat I learned through this sort
(05:59):
of haphazard meandering path intwelve Step Recovery to build
healthy boundaries.
It wasn't like somebody set medown and was like, Okay, we're
going to build boundaries.That's not what happened. It was
a byproduct of the work. Butafter I started to have
boundaries and I saw thisenormous impact, I started
reading about boundaries. And ithelped me to retroactively
understand what happened andwhat I went through and how I
(06:22):
was thinking and all that stuff.
And while I was doing thereading, I would take notes and
I often found myself doingdrawings to visually depict like
these concepts about boundaries.Well, those drawings turned into
handouts and those handoutsturned into a workbook, which is
now the backbone of myboundaries coaching program,
which is called Unshakable You,the fragmented to hold method.
(06:44):
And it's essentially like how Iwent from fifty something years
with no boundaries to havingsuch healthy boundaries that I
now coach people on healthyboundaries. So that's about as
micro aversion as I can giveyou.
Davina (06:59):
Good. Because I have some questions based on that.
There's a lot of feedback So thefirst question I have for you is
I wanna go back to where youmentioned your team and the
ripple effect on of you nothaving boundary having poor I
call them porous boundaries.Right?
Barb (07:14):
Yes.
Davina (07:14):
Yes. And how that affected your team. Could you
give us a little more insight?Because a lot of the people
listening to this podcast arewomen law firm owners. They own
a business.
And so understanding how theirbehaviors affect their team is
very important. Can you tell us,give us an example of some of
the things that, how that showedup, what it looked like?
Barb (07:35):
Yeah, for sure. So I want to start by saying, so my boss
was a faculty member at Yale andthen I was underneath her. And
then there was two divisions.There was the research and
evaluation part and then therewas the program part where we're
actually delivering service. Itwas mostly college access
programs.
So, we were providing servicesin schools to kids and parents
(07:56):
and teachers and stuff. And so,I was on both of those. So, than
I was the only person other thanthe boss that had purview over
everything. So, I impactedeverything. I had what I now
know was a nineteen yearcodependent relationship with my
boss, where she was justhonestly one of the most
unreliable people.
Obviously, she's a facultymember at Yale. She knows what
she's doing. But she didn'tfollow through on things. Didn't
(08:20):
like she'd set up an agenda fora meeting and never follow it.
She blew people off.
And I kept wanting her to bedifferent. And I had all this
frustration and all thisresentment and I would talk
about her behind her back, whichI now know is gossip. And I'm
not stupid, but I somehow didn'tunderstand that because I was
basically brought up, you don'tdirectly communicate with people
(08:42):
and say, hey, this isn't reallyworking. Can we come up with a
solution that doesn't? And so Icreated this culture of
expectation among my colleaguesbecause I was also there longer
than everybody except for theboss.
So not only did I have purview,but I had longevity.
Davina (08:57):
Security, yeah.
Barb (08:58):
So I created this culture of expectation that we don't
solve problems, we talk aboutthem. And we blame the boss for
not being the way that we want.So there was that whole
container that I created of thisis how we do things here. And
then when I didn't know how todirectly communicate with other
(09:20):
people, I learned how to do thatthrough building healthy
boundaries. Because boundariesare clear and not murky, your
communication about them must beclear and not murky.
So I learned to communicate muchmore effectively with people.
And stopping gossiping about theboss was, I can't tell you
(09:41):
enough about how important thatwas. And partly, like a huge
part of it was when I stoppedcomplaining about her, my
resentment against her went way,way, way, way, way down. Because
I was expecting her to bedifferent and she wasn't. And so
I get to
Davina (09:57):
go And you thought you could fix it. You thought you
could fix it if you
Barb (09:59):
I kept thinking if I contort myself in enough ways. I
mean, I had nineteen years ofevidence that it wasn't true,
but I still kept thinking likeshe's the problem. And I started
to realize I'm the problem. Andthen I kind of conveyed that to
everybody else. So what startedhappening was we started
communicating and kind of goingaround her instead of waiting
(10:20):
for her to be there.
So we started like when we're ina meeting, so the deal was if
she wasn't there then I chairedthe meetings. And I always
followed the agenda and keptpeople like, if you have
something that's outside ofwhat's on the agenda that goes
at the end of the meeting unlessit's super important and all
that. But we started reallycommunicating much more clearly.
(10:42):
We stopped worrying so muchabout offending people. I
learned to delegate.
I realized I'd gotten thefeedback so many times from all
my three sixty reviews that Idon't delegate. I don't ask for
help enough. And so I looked atwhy don't I delegate? I found
that there was three reasons.One is that I felt like nobody
(11:03):
could do it as good as me.
This is what I see in womenentrepreneurs all the time. Two,
my boss gave me stuff at thelast minute all of the time and
I hated the idea of doing thatto other people. So I just sort
of took the hit and tried to doit myself. And number three,
there were certain things that Ireally enjoyed doing and I
didn't want to delegate them.And I looked at this and I was
(11:24):
Okay, first of all, my team isamazing.
They're all super talented. Whywould I not delegate something
to them? Maybe they're not goingto do it the same as me, but
it's going to be great becausethey're all top notch. Number
two, all of my team knows. Idon't delegate things at the
last minute.
I don't do things at the lastminute. If it's coming to you at
the last minute, it's becauseit's from the boss and that's
(11:45):
just the way it is. And they getto push back on me if they want
to. And then number three, if Ihave lots of time, then I can do
the things I like doing. So thething that pops in my mind is I
loved designing flyers.
We have an administrativeassistant who is very talented
at that and actually designsbetter flyers than me. And also,
it's in her job description,right? So I started to be like,
(12:06):
I had to look at, like, I felt Iwas such like, I need to do
everything. I can't ask forhelp. There's something wrong
with asking for help.
So when I started doing thosethings, other people started
doing those things. And otherpeople started stepping up
because I was requiring them tostep up. So I could go on, but I
(12:26):
think I've given you some ideasof how that Yeah, for sure.
Davina (12:29):
For sure. The piece too that I found interesting as
somebody who I've been throughdecades of therapy, you've been
through decades of therapy. Itwas like what, forty years of
therapy and personaldevelopment, you said?
Barb (12:44):
Thirty seven. Yeah. Thirty seven years. Okay. Great.
And then continued after that.Yeah.
Davina (12:49):
So I am really curious about, because I've recently
been following someone who istherapist and she's been really
changing my thoughts abouttherapy and it's been very
interesting. But what is it togo through that many years of
therapy and never hear the wordcodependency? Surprises me that
(13:10):
you never did. And what is it doyou think with therapy that was
different that the 12 step sortof program for you as a
codependent made the difference?
Barb (13:24):
Yeah, I think, frankly, I had a lot of mediocre
therapists, to be perfectlyfrank with you. They were
sounding boards for me. Thetherapist that I was with when I
got into recovery, I found outshe was a trauma therapist. So
my main program is called AdultChildren of Alcoholics and
Dysfunctional Families. It's atrauma recovery program where
you reparent yourself and youuse the 12 steps to recover.
(13:47):
I didn't know that I had trauma.I didn't know that I suffered
from childhood trauma andintergenerational family
dysfunction, but she knew andshe didn't tell me. When I
finally
Davina (13:57):
had to remember kept just letting you talk about it
and hoping you would finallypick it up.
Barb (14:00):
Right. And then when I finally figured it out and
started going to recovery andthen I developed the wherewithal
to say something to her, like,why didn't you tell me? And she
said something like, I don'tfeel like it's my place to tell
people who they are, to diagnosethem. And I remember thinking,
wait, I didn't say this becauseI still didn't have the ability
to communicate directly. Ithought, if it's not your job,
(14:24):
whose job is it?
But I think there are sometherapists who feel like if
people come up with something ontheir own, they're much more
likely to buy into it. And thatmay be true. But you could
literally have saved me years ofmy life if you had said you
might want to look intocodependence. Yeah. So I think
there's that.
And then the 12 steps ofrecovery, I think, are really
powerful for many reasons. Soit's a technology is really what
(14:47):
it is. So it's a systematic 12steps. You do it in this order.
This is how it works.
Number two, it's done in a groupsetting. So you have people all
along the pipeline, peoplewho've been in the program for
years, people who've justrecently started and brand new
people. So we're all learningfrom each other from an
experiential standpoint. WhereasI think a lot of therapists
(15:09):
become therapists because theyhave their own issues, but they
never tell you anything abouttheir own stories because
they're supposed to beobjective, which I don't think
is really possible as a humanbeing. And so you're learning in
a group setting.
You've got multiple points ofsupport with those people. And
then number three, twelve StepRecovery is actually spiritually
(15:30):
based, which means it doesn'thave to do with God, but for
some people it does. It meansI'm part of something greater
than myself and I know it. Andso we're dealing with ourselves
as these spiritual beings in thecontext of this group of people
who've gone through the samedrama and trauma and chaos that
(15:52):
we have and have healed and canshare that wisdom. And we're
following this 12 step processthat's been laid out and has
worked for millions of peoplearound the world for multiple
things.
Davina (16:05):
Right. So now as a boundary coach, I think a lot of
people get confused, especiallywhen people are doing coaching
in any sort of relational orinterpersonal development kind
of space. Business coaching ispretty much understand. Coaching
is this framework. But when itcomes to this, I think that
(16:28):
sometimes a lot of peopleconfuse coaching and therapy.
They think, oh, we have peoplewho wanna be therapists, who are
coaching, quote, quote coaching.And I even get that as a
business coach. When I firststarted out, it's very easy to
get sort of sucked into thatthing like a therapist, right?
But you're not a therapist. Andexplain to us how your work as a
(16:53):
boundaries coach differs thatsort of world and from 12 step
recovery, right?
Because people may come from alot of different experiences.
Barb (17:03):
Yeah. So I have a very structured system. I have a
whole curriculum that'smultimedia that I take you
through. So it includesPowerPoints, podcast episodes,
articles, and a workbook. Sothere's multiple ways for you to
take in and learn and integratethe material.
The majority of the coachingsessions I do with them is the
(17:27):
actual talking about theirspecific situations, issues,
relationships, etc, and helpingthem apply what they're learning
in all this other work to theirspecific life and helping them
like troubleshoot. And I willsay, like, all of it's valuable.
But of course, the most valuablepart is the one on one with me
(17:48):
where they get to explain theirscenario. And I can say to them,
and of course, I do so gently,things acting like a victim, as
if you have no choices and youactually do. And the reason I
can spot that, Divina, is victimmentality is hands down the
biggest paradigm shift of myrecovery.
And I'm not the quintessentialvictim. I never was like, Woe is
(18:10):
me. The world is against me.I've always felt like a powerful
woman of agency. And yet I wasgoing, oh, if only he would
change, then everything would beOkay.
And then when I did myrelationship inventory in 12
Step Recovery, I saw that Ithought that about every
relationship I ever had. And Istarted to see, well, wait,
that's me acting like I havenothing to do with the status of
(18:32):
any of my relationships. Andthat just doesn't make any
sense. So I can point out veryspecifically, like this is what
you're thinking. Here's anotherway to think about it.
Here's a way for you to startactually making choices and go
from being someone who'sreactive to life to someone
who's proactive in their life.And I think what happens for
(18:55):
people as they build healthyboundaries is they're getting to
know themselves. Like, who am I?Where do I end and other people
begin? What do I like, want,need and prefer?
What's Okay with me and what'snot Okay with me? And for me,
the biggest impact is what haveI been doing in my life that's
created chaos or drama orexacerbated the already existing
(19:16):
chaos? So the gossiping is areally good example. I think of
it as I was lobbing bombs intomy own life, but I didn't even
know it. And so I call theseboundaries of self containment.
These are things I either needto contain or stop doing
altogether. And I would say thatthose type of boundaries
specifically cleaned up 85% ofthe trauma and and chaos and all
(19:39):
that stuff in my life.
Davina (19:40):
I think it's so interesting too, because as
people who are codependent, andI had that diagnosed years ago,
decades ago, I've done a lot toovercome that. But one of the
things that we think we'redoing, and this is very common,
is we're fixing or we'rehelping. We're fixing or we're
(20:01):
helping. I'm trying to fix. I'mtrying to help.
And so if you say, I've I can myidea will fix this problem, and
you have an idea about otherpeople's lives about how to fix
it. Red flag. Red flag. Right?
Barb (20:14):
And the temptation to
Davina (20:15):
fix it because you feel like you know something that
they don't. The temptation tofix it is there to fix it for
them. You're talking aboutboundaries, give us an idea. I
want to go deeper into thebusiness boundaries
specifically, but tell me thedifferent areas where you cover
boundaries and kind of whatdistinguishes them.
Barb (20:33):
Yeah. So what I found, you know, as I mentioned to you
before the call, I do a lot ofnetworking with women
entrepreneurs. I identifystrongly as an entrepreneur
myself, and many suck withboundaries. So this means things
like they're not charging atleast market rate. They are not
delegating things.
They think they need to doeverything themselves. They are
(20:55):
absolutely paralyzed asking forhelp. It feels somehow like
they're stepping down a level.Know for me, to ask for help was
absolutely enormous in my life.Now I'm like, oh my God, help is
awesome.
I love help. They don't let goof toxic employees, vendors,
clients, etcetera. And theyreally don't take good care of
themselves. So women suffer fromthis idea that is somehow
(21:18):
selfish. Like I actually,Devina, had a client say to me,
I'd rather be called a whorethan selfish.
Like what is going on
Davina (21:25):
in Wow, that's so powerful. Wow.
Barb (21:27):
Right. Right. Like, it is not selfish to take care of
yourself. It is selfpreservation. And I love the
metaphor of this.
I don't know if you know whoAshley Kirkwood is. She wrote
the book Speak Your Way to Cash.She's actually an attorney by
training. And she says, you wantto pour from the overflow rather
from an empty cup. Well, theonly way you're going to have
(21:49):
overflow is if you fill your cupfirst.
So just like in an airplane,they say, hey, if the oxygen
mask falls down first, you putthe falls down, you put it on
yourself first if you arehelping someone. What they don't
say is because if you're passedout, you can't help other
people. If your cup is empty,what you're giving to other
people is not good. So you getto take really good care of
(22:13):
yourself and pour into yourbusiness and your clients and
your families and your lovedones from the overflow. But you
are in charge of filling yourown cup.
You can't wait around forcircumstances to be right. So
you need to make sure thatyou're doing something. And when
I say fill your own cup, when Isay self care, I mean what fuels
(22:35):
you? What gives you energy? Sowhat gives you energy might be
completely different than whatgives me energy.
I do things like meditate, pray,yoga, go for walks in nature,
journal, do creative projectsand stuff like that. Those are
things that fuel me. Read. Ilove the Hallmark channel. I
used to be like parent I used tobe I'm a former closeted
(22:55):
Hallmark fan, actually, becauseI used to be like, oh, people
are going to think that's sappy.
It is sappy. And now I don'tcare if people think that
because I like it. There'salways a happy ending. I used
to, before recovery, I watchedLaw and Order, CSI, Criminal
Minds, and I was activated allthe time. And now I'm like, Oh,
that's so sweet.
So that's a good example of myrecovery. Before Criminal Minds,
(23:19):
after Hallmark.
Davina (23:20):
True crime documentaries. Those of us true
crime documentaries. Of when youtalk about so I wanna dig a
little deeper into boundariesbecause I think boundaries is
really the primary self carethat you're talking about as
well. I mean, we just start withjust boundaries. Yeah.
So I wanna talk about someexamples of what boundaries look
like in a work setting and workenvironment, especially if
(23:45):
you're the boss. Because I thinkthere's a lot of social media
out there telling employees andcorporations you need to set
these boundaries. Tell your bossyou're not working at this time
and that time and all this. Andthis is a Gen Z phenomenon
that's come out. But I see a lotof women law firm owners that
really struggle to setboundaries, not only with their
(24:07):
prospective clients and clients,but also with their employees.
So, to give you an example of,recently somebody was talking
about, an employee, I mean, aclient who was calling their
office all the time and kind ofberating the team because they
(24:29):
wanted stuff done and all ofthis kind of stuff. And the
berating the attorney and herassistant who was taking the
call and having such strugglewith how do I draw and then
enforce that boundary? Becauseit's not just enough to draw it.
You have to actually stick toit.
Barb (24:47):
Enforce. Right. Which is that's the hard part.
Davina (24:49):
So what other kind of you know, what other examples do
you have of sort of where yousee entrepreneurs or business
owners, particularly lawyersstruggle with boundaries?
Barb (24:58):
So I think that's a really good one that, you know, having
clients who want the scope ofwork to expand and they don't
want to have to pay for it. Ithink that's pretty classic. And
so if you think about it,policies and procedures are
boundaries. They tell you thisis the purview of the work that
we're going to be doing. And soI want to give this tip, and
(25:19):
that is that we want to setboundaries as soon as we know
that we need them orpreemptively.
And so there's a saying, thebest time to plant a tree was
thirty years ago. The next timeis today. The best time to set a
boundary with someone is beforeyou start working with them. The
next best time is today. So toprevent that kind of thing from
(25:39):
happening, you have policies andprocedures in your contract with
your client and you tell them,like, this is how much service
that you're going to get forthis amount of money and
anything beyond that we're goingto have to renegotiate.
And if they are telling you,hey, I need to do this and do
that, then you could saysomething like this is fantastic
that you love our work and youwant us to do more with you.
This is outside the purview ofwhat we've agreed for. So either
(26:02):
we can renegotiate the scope ofwork or you're going to have to
get that service elsewhere. Andsome people might think, oh my
God, that's terrible. I can'tsay that.
That's cruel. Like this is abusiness. And if you really want
to be there for your otherclients and you don't want to be
depleted by this person and youdon't want to resent your
client, then you need to clearlycommunicate to them. This is why
(26:22):
doing it ahead of time is muchbetter. And so, think that the
work life balance is the otherthing I've heard from attorneys
all the time is that because,like, let's say that you're an
associate and you want to workyour way up to partner, then you
know, like if a partner comes toyou at five on Friday with file
and say, I need this on my deskby nine Monday morning, you
(26:45):
might feel like, oh my God, Idon't have a choice.
Well, you actually made thechoice by choosing to be an
associate who wants to work upto partner. And so you get to
let go of any like resentment oranything like that against the
firm or the profession or thepartner and take that energy
that you might be upset aboutand put it towards doing the
(27:07):
work. Or you could say,actually, this isn't the
lifestyle that I want. And Ithink, you know, speaking of
lifestyle, the way that I startwith all of my coaching clients,
Divina, is I have them start bygoing through an exercise to
determine their top five valuesand then they use those values
as guideposts or almost likeguardrails for how to make
decisions and how to setboundaries in their lives
(27:29):
because your values are yoursfor a reason. They didn't come
up for no reason, and so theyshould guide the way that you
live.
And I think this is important inbusiness too. So let me
Davina (27:42):
scroll back to the example that you used. So in the
scenario you talked about, ourlisteners would be the boss of
that associate. And so if wehave a boss of that associate
who says, Well, I worked fortytwo hours last week and forty
four the week before, so thisweek I wanna take off early,
which that's part time forlawyers. Forty hours is part
(28:03):
time for most lawyers. But thisidea of, well, I worked a couple
hours extra, so this week I wantto leave early or whatever.
And then you've got the boss whohas spent their whole career
putting in extra time and workedto get the client work done and
the client satisfied. And thatmeans maybe an eighty hour
(28:25):
weeks. How does a bosscommunicate those? What's the
best way for bosses tocommunicate those boundaries?
And then I would say, hold thoseboundaries.
Barb (28:35):
Yeah. Yeah. So communicating them starts when
you hire the person. Like, thisis the expectation that you're
going to work however many hoursare required. And it's not based
on how many hours you worked theweek before.
It's based on the work that getsdone. Are you in for that? And
if they are, then you justremind them that this is what's
going to happen. And if theycome to you, you can say, as a
(28:58):
reminder, here's your contractor your job description or
whatever it is, and this is thejob. And if this isn't the job
that you want, then you mightneed to look elsewhere.
So you do like immediately. Youneed to do it as soon as it
happens, the very first timethat it happens. And you can
say, listen, I hear you and Iget that you don't want to do
(29:18):
that. But the reality is this isthe job. And the problem, like a
lot of people think, all I needto know is the words.
If I just have the right words,I could get people to listen to
me and respect my patterns.Having the right words is really
important. This is why my moduletwo is communication, right? But
just because you have the rightwords doesn't mean you can stand
(29:39):
firm in your boundaries. That'sthe problem.
Because the thing that causesmost people to either not set
boundaries or to cave on them isguilt and shame. They feel
guilty and shameful aboutsetting boundaries with people.
And I think this is especiallyso for women because we are
acculturated to be like thegivers and the helpers and the
(30:00):
caretakers and all that sort ofthing. And we feel like we have
to somehow take care of thepeople that work for us. And you
actually don't.
They're adults and it's theirjob. And if this isn't the right
job for them, then they're theone that gets to leave. So
standing firm in your boundariesmeans you have to believe. You
have to have the big picture inmind, and you have to believe
(30:23):
that the firm that you have setup is meeting the needs of your
employees in the professionalways that they need them to
meet. If they want theirpersonal needs met, they get to
take charge of that.
And so I think what I haven'tsaid so far that I think is
important to share here is Ithink the crux of what shifted
(30:46):
for me to go from fiftysomething years with no
boundaries to having suchhealthy boundaries is that I
came to care more what I thinkof myself than what other people
do. And this doesn't mean,Davina, that I don't care what
other people think of me. Ofcourse I do. What it means is I
used to be willing to throw myintegrity out the window. I
would say yes to things I didn'twant to do.
(31:07):
I would say no to things that Iactually wanted to do, either
because I was afraid to bejudged or I didn't have time. I
would act like things were okaywith me. I would not speak up
when things really bothered meor they went against my values.
So, I was, that's called lying.And then, I was manipulating
people by being a peoplepleaser.
So, I was doing things to getthem to like me. It doesn't mean
(31:30):
I didn't want to be helpful. Ofcourse, I did. But wanting to be
helpful doesn't explain that weget to the point where we're
over giving and we're resentfuland all that stuff. So here I
was lying and manipulating.
I'm no longer willing to do thatfor someone's approval. Like,
it's more important for me to bean honest woman of integrity
(31:52):
than it is for you to like me. Iwant you to like me, but I
don't, with claws, need you tolike me the way that I used to.
Well, and
Davina (31:58):
it's interesting you say that because I don't think that,
that's incredible selfawareness. When you say, I
realized I was lying andmanipulating. I think most
people don't think they're lyingand manipulating. They are
acting in a way that along theirway in their life, they've been
trained as sort of how tointeract with people. So it's
the self reflection piece that Ithink is so powerful and we
(32:22):
often don't do.
When we think about peopleworking for us or our clients
working with us or whatever,looking and saying, how am I
doing that? Of the things I wantto touch on with that is, and
the thought just went right outof my head. You were saying
(32:42):
something about keep talking andthen I'll figure that out. You
were saying, I wanna talk aboutthis boss relationship and this
idea that this boundaries withemployees and what those
boundaries mean. There'ssomething along the line of, oh,
(33:05):
I know what it is.
Boundaries, people often havethis idea of you're not doing
what I want. So you're crossingmy boundaries. So I want you to
talk a little bit more aboutboundary setting and in a in a
work environment when you're theboss. Mhmm. What what boundaries
(33:28):
give me an example of whatboundaries look like and how
they can.
I think some people will look atit and say, well, I set my
boundaries, you cross them,therefore, you're out of here.
As opposed to understandingboundaries really are not a
weapon, boundaries really areabout being real about who you
(33:48):
are or whatever it is. So canyou explore that a little bit?
Barb (33:51):
Yeah. So healthy boundaries are proactive, not
reactive. So you don't set aboundary after the fact. Like a
healthy person does not set aboundary after the fact because
somebody did somethingegregious, right? They are
proactive and they're like, thisis, you know, like the job
description or the expectationsfor the work is you setting a
(34:14):
boundary.
And then the consequence is whathappens if they don't. So, you
know, let's just use theexample. They came to you and
they're like, Oh, well, I workedforty four hours the week before
last and I worked forty two, soI want to work less this week.
Well, you say, Okay, well, theexpectation is not actually the
number of hours per week. It'sthe work that gets done.
(34:35):
And so my expectation is thatyou're going to get this work
done. And if that doesn'thappen, then we're going to make
note of this and you're going toget written up for that. Like,
there's probably a policy oflike, if you get written up
three times or something likethat. And I hate
Davina (34:51):
to I think a lot of people don't have those
policies. They need them. Andthat's where when they own their
own So those entrepreneurs oftendon't have I'm always talking
about how policies, procedures,contracts, all these things are
leadership tools. They'reactually leadership tools.
Barb (35:07):
And they're boundaries. They're like, here's the
expectations. You know, like,when you have healthy
boundaries, you essentiallyteach people, this is how you
can expect to interact from me.Or the way that I like to say
is, if you want the best of me,this is what is going to happen.
Is like, if you want the best ofme as a boss, you're going to
work on the projects that yousaid you're going to work on.
(35:27):
You're going to give me lots ofnotice and you're never going to
blindside me about things, thatsort of thing. You're going to
tell them, this is what Iappreciate in an associate.
These are the kinds of thingsthat are going to get you
promoted. Like, this is what'sgoing to work for you. And the
other, I think the distinction,especially for women, is these
are not your family members.
These are your employees. Andyou need to treat them like
(35:50):
family members and you're theboss. You're not their sister.
You're not their friend. You'renot just their colleague.
You're their boss. And thatmeans something. And so you need
to act like a boss, which meansyou need to learn how to have
difficult conversations and youneed to have them as soon as
possible. You do not let thingsbecome toxic. You deal with them
(36:11):
as soon as they come up.
That's Yeah,
Davina (36:15):
you hit on that family piece. And I think this is
something I see with mostentrepreneurs, especially women,
no matter what business they'rein, is when you start out,
you're so this is your baby,your little seed. There's so
much fear around whether it'sgonna grow and and you're
worried every day. Am I gonnaget clients? Am I gonna grow
this the way I want?
(36:36):
Am I going to make the money?And then that first person that
you hire is your help. They justbecome your right hand. And we
often see this with that, thisperson has been with me for
years and now I've hired otherpeople and this person is
becoming a problem, but I don'twant to give up on her because
she was there with me in thebeginning when it was so hard.
(36:58):
That sort of thing.
And we see this with women andother women, different than with
men. Having worked with men, youknow, men don't stress so much
over giving feedback aboutsomebody's performance or firing
(37:19):
them quickly because they're notworking out. Whereas women wanna
try to make it work. We wannatry to fix it. Wanna try to see
if we can salvage therelationship.
Have you seen these kinds ofthings that, and also what I
talked about, you were talkingabout family.
Barb (37:36):
Yeah.
Davina (37:36):
That starting person that was with Yeah.
Barb (37:40):
Yeah. So what is coming to mind is there's a book called
Buy Back Your Time by Dan,forgetting his last name, is
fantastic. He actually helpsstart Really, really good book.
And he talks about how the CEOof the startup, when they go
public, they often don't stickaround because they're the
(38:00):
starter and that'sheartbreaking. But the board
knows, like that person got youto here, but they're not going
to get you to go forward.
So it's understood in thestartup business, this is what
happens. Well, what that meansis when you start up a law firm,
the first person you hire isn'tnecessarily going to be the
person that can get you startedis not necessarily the person
that's going to grow you and getyou to the next level. So
(38:22):
knowing that ahead of time, Ithink this is one reason they
say that when you start to growyour business, bringing human
resources firm on board doesn'tmean you have to have them in
house, but that can help youthink through the long term,
like what kind of policies andprocedures do I have? And if
you're doing regular annual,semiannual evaluations and
(38:46):
you're talking about like, okay,here's where we want to go. If
it's pretty clear this personisn't going to grow into this
role, you can let them know.
It seems like where this firm isgrowing might not continue to be
a good fit for you. So if youkind of go into it knowing that,
I know that it's too late formany people because they started
their firm X number of yearsago.
Davina (39:05):
And now they already have this right hand person and
this right hand person maybe, ina lot of cases I've seen, sort
of sabotage going on. There'sthis feeling of I'm close to the
boss. I'm the right hand of theboss, and now you're coming in
and you don't know her like Ido. Right.
Barb (39:21):
Right. Yeah.
Davina (39:21):
That kind of thing.
Barb (39:22):
Yeah. And I think the solution to just about all these
problems is directlycommunicating with people about
what is going on, like going tothem and saying, I can't tell
you how much I appreciate whatyou've done to help me build
this business to where it's at.But it seems to me like where
this business is going is notreally where you're best suited.
(39:44):
Like, what's your feedback aboutthat? Or are you willing to,
whatever, get professionaldevelopment, continuing
education, whatever is required?
But also not letting them dothat thing where they're like,
I'm like this with the boss and,you know, I've got her ear and
nobody else does. Like, youcan't play favorites like that.
(40:06):
Especially not if you're like,this person's an administrative
assistant and then everybodyelse are attorneys. There's a
certain like, you know, attorneycamaraderie that needs to
happen. And if you're puttingsomeone else in the middle of
that, it can be reallydisruptive.
But it's hard for people tothink like this when they've
never started a law firm before,which I'm sure is where you come
(40:27):
along.
Davina (40:28):
Right. Well, and having the piece where they're
establishing is this is thefamily. I brought this example
up because of the family piecethat you mentioned. This idea,
you're so such in a vulnerablein such a vulnerable place when
you're starting your businessand you're hiring that first one
or two people And this idea thatwe're family, we're going to and
(40:51):
and really that's a point whereyou need to start setting those
boundaries and thatdifferentiating on the boss. And
what we see happen oftentimes iswe're all friends.
Like, you're working as friend.We're gonna go out. I I know all
about your boyfriend drama. Theyknow all about my, you know,
husband's situation. And, youknow, we're all going out for
(41:13):
cocktails to bond, that kind ofthing.
And I think the intention isvery good, wanting to treat
people as human beings and careabout them. But I think one of
the things that comes up forwomen that doesn't come up for a
minute as much is that when wewere growing up, women were
(41:34):
taught to sort of compete withother girls. So girls compete
with other girls. If you had abest friend and a third friend
came into the picture, it didn'tgo very well. Somebody got their
feelings hurt.
The games that we played wereone on one kinds of games rather
than team things. I know that'schanged some since my
generation, but that idea ofcomparison with women. And so
(41:57):
when you get into a workenvironment, you may be the
lawyer, but you're also hiringpeople. And then I often see it
happen where women arechallenging and they're saying,
you think you're better than meand you're not. You have not in
a direct way, but in a behaviorway.
Who do you think you are? Youthink you're better than me
(42:18):
because you went to law school,you became a lawyer, all that.
I'm just as good as you. I'mgonna go to law school too.
Well, great.
But that's a lot of what we seeamong women is this idea. And
that doesn't mean that that'sthe case across the board. I'm
just pointing it out for thosewho have experienced it or are
experiencing. Have you seenthat, you know, in the
(42:38):
entrepreneurial world?
Barb (42:41):
Yeah. I mean, I don't see that so I mean, it's probably
happening, but it's notsomething that I actually see
directly from other people. ButI would say that people who are
secure don't make comments like,Oh, you think that you're better
than me? Then people I thinkyou're making the comments, to
(43:04):
my No, in their minds. They'renot even thinking that.
And also people who are securedon't act superior to other
people, and they don't. And so Ithink that a lot of this stuff
could be prevented ahead oftime, but it's too late for so
many people. But the reality issitting down and having a direct
(43:25):
conversation, perhaps having aretreat of your people that's
facilitated by an outside personand letting them know, like
these are some of the issuesthat are going on. How do we
heal this in such a way that wecan gel again as a team, as
human beings, and still beprofessionals together and do
(43:46):
the work? I think if it's gottento that point, then you might
need some kind of outsideintervention like that.
But I think it starts with whothe leader is. Like, if you
personally do not have healthyboundaries, your business is not
going to have healthy boundariesand your employees are not going
to have I mean, maybe one or twoof them might, but in general,
(44:08):
they're not going to havehealthy boundaries.
Davina (44:10):
So I guess that's my point because I have heard this
very scenario that I'm sharingwith you and it's not something
overt that people say. They'renot saying,
Barb (44:18):
but there's
Davina (44:19):
a challenge in the way they're challenging the owner of
the firm. There's a challengethat is happening that indicates
that there is that sort of innerdialogue of, I have to prove to
you that we are equal. And sowhat I'm looking for is a way,
how do women law firm ownersdeal with this disrespect really
(44:43):
that comes from an employeebecause they're saying, you
don't get to tell me what to do.It's like life literally. I get
to tell you what to do, right?
Barb (44:51):
Yeah. So we command respect. And I don't mean
command like, you're going to dothis. I mean, we command
respect, which comes frominternally. You can't command
respect if you don't feel selfrespect.
If you feel like it's not myplace to tell them what to do
and you're the law firm owner,why are you a law firm owner if
you don't feel like you shouldbe telling them what to do?
Davina (45:13):
I think many people just say, I'll just do it myself and
do it. This is your delegationthing you're talking about. They
just say, I don't want deal withthe hassle. I'll just do it
myself. And
Barb (45:23):
I just do it myself does not get you to being a
successful law firm owner. Yeah.Like nobody gets to the top
without other people. NobodyLike, I think it's Arnold
Schwarzenegger said, There's nosuch thing as a self made man.
There's no such thing as a selfmade woman.
Like, he didn't get to be Mr.Universe or whatever he was by
himself. Nobody gets to the topby themselves, right? But you
(45:50):
are the leader and you set thetone for the organization. So if
you feel disrespected by youremployees, that's on you.
They're not going to change onyour own. You have to start
commanding respect and saying, Iknow that up until now I have
tolerated XYZ behavior, butgoing forward, here's what's
(46:10):
going to happen.
Davina (46:11):
Yeah. So commanding respect, I think this is the
point that where I'm trying toget with this is that part of
commanding respect isboundaries, is this idea of
boundaries. And also you talk alot about this and I want people
to make sure they walk away withthis realization is that when
you're talking about boundaries,communication, direct
(46:34):
communication, not subtlecommunication or manipulation,
manipulative communication, butdirect communication and is a
big piece of boundaries. Justhaving like your own, like a
little internal boundarieswithout articulating what they
are in any given situation is aproblem. And it's not a text of,
(47:02):
don't do that.
You're talking about human tohuman conversation and
interaction. Right.
Barb (47:10):
Yeah. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point
about texting. I am not a fan oftexting anything that is
potentially difficult or youknow, there's so much that's
lost in text. There's no likevoice inflection or tone or any
of that stuff. So even if youcan't see them, then call and
(47:31):
leave a voice memo so they canat least get the intonation of
your voice and make it reallyclear.
There's way too much importantinformation that is being People
are having relationships viatext nowadays. And I get, you
know, for some people they haveto do that for whatever reason.
But if you need to have animportant conversation with
somebody, please don't do it ontext.
Davina (47:48):
If you're the leader of a business, that really is not
the same with email, you know,before text was email and
there's a danger in that becauseI understand with attorneys, we
like to document things andthat's okay to follow-up with
such a thing. But when you'redealing with your employees on
an interpersonal level or anyother types of boundaries that
you're setting or any otherclear expectations you're
(48:10):
setting, they really need to beconversation.
Barb (48:15):
Yeah, yeah. And I think having regular one on ones with
your employees is reallyvaluable. And it could be a
touch base fifteen minutes aweek or every two weeks or
something like that. And thenyou set specific meetings for
topical things if you need to dothat. But having a one on one
with people on a regular basisso that you're continually
feeding back to them, this isworking really well, this is not
(48:38):
working really well.
And they can also feed to you,like the way that you're doing
this isn't really working forme, or I have a suggestion for
how we could change that. Butthat keeping communication
flowing, like everybody knowscommunication is the key to good
relationships. We just don'tknow how to do it. Like, I truly
believe, Denina, that I was agood communicator. I was a
program coordinator runningprograms in up to 25 schools in
(49:02):
three school districts at atime.
So I kept the communicationflowing. And that may be so that
in that way I was a goodcommunicator. But when I got
into recovery, I realized, oh myGod, I was doing a lot of
beating around the bush,implying things, expecting
people should know things,expecting that people should
read my mind or trying like Ididn't understand what somebody
(49:22):
meant, so I filled in the gapstypically with some kind of
negative spin on it. And now ifI'm not really clear, what does
somebody mean? I say, I'm notsure what you mean by that.
Can you explain or can you giveme more information? I'm a
little confused. And I know now,like if I think people should
know something, I'm wrongbecause if somebody should know
something, then they would knowit. So you come right out and
(49:45):
tell them. I was doing a meetingat a church group one time and
this woman was like, after fortyyears of marriage, he should
know blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, well, apparentlyhe doesn't. And so we take it.
She was taking it personallylike it was a personal affront
to her that it was purposely notdoing the thing. Everybody
thinks differently, especiallymen and women. People retain
different things.
(50:06):
People attend to differentthings. So if you think someone
should know something, then comeright out and tell them, right?
Don't beat around the bush. Saydirectly what you mean to the
person so that there's no error,you know, there's no
mistranslation error going onthere. And we somehow believe,
(50:26):
especially women, that it's likerude or mean to directly
communicate.
I know that when I started doingit, I was just like, Oh my God,
this is awful. This is mean. Andwhat I now know is it saves a
lot of time and people trust mebecause they know I'm going to
tell them the truth. Thatdoesn't work for me.
Davina (50:46):
That's huge. Discuss that with my clients all the
time, especially if you're theboss, right? You own the You
need to be communicatingdirectly. I grew up in the Deep
South where women are taught tosugarcoat everything. Want to
serve it up with a little bit
Barb (51:05):
of onion, Sugarcoating is the play.
Davina (51:09):
I was like, this doesn't work because people aren't
understanding what you'resaying. You think it's so clear
and it also feels manipulative,even though it's not intended to
be that way. And in a workenvironment, it just doesn't
work. I mean, you really have tobe a, a, you know, much more
direct. And when you first startdoing that, it does feel mean if
(51:32):
you've been taught that that isrude or not, but we can be
direct and be kind.
Absolutely. The kindest thingyou could do is be direct.
Barb (51:41):
Yes. Clear boundaries are clear and kind.
Davina (51:46):
Barb, thanks so much for being here and talking with me
about this topic today. Know ourlisteners are going to get a lot
out of it. Tell us how we canconnect with you and find out
more information about workingwith you.
Barb (51:56):
Absolutely. So my favorite place to hang out on social
media is on Instagram. I'm atHigher Power Coaching. You can
find me on LinkedIn also at BarbNangle. That's N as in neighbor,
A N G L E.
And then I do offer, AccelerateYour Boundaries, the Fast Track
Starter Kit. It'sboundariesstarterkit.com. It's
free and it's a good way to justget started.
Davina (52:19):
Very good. Thanks so much for being here and I look
forward to continuing ourconversation in the future.
Barb (52:24):
Excellent. Thank you so much, Devina. This has been
great. I loved it.
Intro (52:29):
If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in
your business and your life,then you'll want to visit us at
wealthywomanlawyer.com to learnmore about how we help our
clients create wealth generatinglaw firms with ease.
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