Sarah Cottrell: Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I've practiced law for 10 years and now I help unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. On this show, I share advice and strategies for aspiring former lawyers and interviews with former lawyers, who have left the law behind, to find careers and lives that they love.

Are you someone who has talked to people outside of the law about how you don't like what you're doing or how terrible it is? And they responded with like, well, that's just a job. They call it a job for a reason or like something along those lines. If so, you are definitely not alone. And I want to talk about it today on this episode, because people I work with, lawyers, hear this from non-lawyers all the time. And there is a kernel of truth, right? Because a job is a job and even a job that you absolutely love, for example, I love the job that I do, it doesn't mean that every moment is going to be, like, pure bliss, right? There's still going to be some amount of, like, work and ugh and whatever, because that's normal, because that's life, because you're a human and even if it's something that you love, there are going to be times where you're just, like, not feeling it. That is reality.

Also, all of us have responsibilities, right? So like, there are things here in this capitalist dystopia that we need to be able to pay for, like rent or mortgage, or food, or healthcare, depending on where you live. And yes, we all need to do things, in order to make that happen, right? So this is not me saying like, who cares about anything? Because like, that would be, I think, unhelpful. And, you know, I'm not the kind of person who's like, who cares about the fact that you have three kids you need to send to college? You should go bartend on a beach in Cabo. Like that's not... no. But the problem that I find is that very often people who I work with are expressing just the abject misery that can be visited upon you as a lawyer. They're talking about the fact that they're in a workplace that is extremely toxic. They're talking about the fact that they're working with true narcissists. They're experiencing narcissistic abuse, or if not narcissistic abuse, you're just in this position where there's sort of like the relentless deadlines, the reality that anything that you do in theory, could be a mistake that is malpractice and that has implications for your license. There are lots of things about being a lawyer that can be uniquely unpleasant.

So often what happens is I'll work with someone who is having that kind of experience as a lawyer, and they'll talk to someone who's a non-lawyer, whether it's a parent, or a friend, or whatever and that person will be like, you know, well, why would you want to leave? You've, like, worked so hard and also, like, every job sucks, basically. And here's the thing. Every job doesn't suck. Every job doesn't suck in the way that being a lawyer often sucks. That is just a fact. I have seen enough lawyers go from being lawyers to being non-lawyers at this point in my life, to be able to tell you definitively that every job does not suck, the way being a lawyer sucks. If you think being a lawyer sucks. If you don't think being a lawyer sucks, that's great. Also, I'm not sure why you're listening to this podcast. But if you think being a lawyer sucks, not every job sucks in the way that being a lawyer does. I mean, that's just true. That is factual.

I'm sure there are people who disagree with me. I believe that those people are wrong. I have seen so much evidence at this point that there is a difference in the experience of someone going through, you know, a job that is maybe not like every single thing they might possibly ultimately want and going through a lawyer job that is making them miserable and is soul-sucking and is just like sapping their literal will to live that is destroying their mental and physical health. Like, there is a difference. And so I really just want to tell you that if you are someone who has had this experience of talking to someone who's not a lawyer and them saying to you something like, there's a reason they call it a job, if it was fun, everyone would do it, or like whatever things that people say, they don't know what they're talking about. I mean, they do, but they don't. They do in general, but they don't, in the sense that they're saying that to try to say that, like, your experience doesn't mean that you should do something else. And they're wrong, in my opinion.

Here's the other thing. There are a lot of us who are lawyers who think that in order for something to really be work, we need to suffer. Okay, I'm going to say that one more time. A lot of us who became lawyers for various reasons believe that if something isn't causing our suffering, that if it isn't so hard, or onerous, or distressing, or challenging that we're suffering, that it can't really be work. And so sometimes it's hard for lawyers to have an imagination for what else might be possible, because genuinely, there is some part of many of us that doesn't believe that we could do a job and get paid for something and not feel like we were suffering. Because for a lot of us, we have tied sort of like mental and emotional suffering to like what it means to work hard, like what it means to do a good job. And as I talked about last week, talking about therapy, that is something that you may want to talk about with a therapist.

Because the reality is that for a lot of us, the idea that you could go work a job and not suffer, not suffer mentally and emotionally, there can be the sense of like, is that really possible? And it is, but there are a lot of us who find it hard to believe that you could do worthwhile work, that you could do work worth doing, that you could do work that ultimately is good for you and your life and good for the world and not suffer. And if that's you, then I strongly suggest that you see a therapist and talk to them about that. Because that is a fallacy that many of us internalized, because of our achievement-oriented natures, environments, et cetera. Suffering is not necessarily a requirement of doing work that will sustain you. And I think that you owe it to yourself to explore whether you are being trapped by this idea of like, for it to really be work, you need to be suffering. And if it is something that's operating for you, get rid of it. Process it and be able to put it in its appropriate place, because ultimately that can keep you stuck in a job that is not a good fit for you, that you don't need to be in, because some part of you thinks like, well, that suffering is just part of a job.

And listen, suffering is a part of life, right? We all will suffer. So this is not me saying it's possible to live a life that's free from suffering. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is you don't have to suffer in your job. That's not a necessary requirement of it being a job. I know there are a lot of you listening, who probably have talked to people, who have said something like, you know, all jobs suck, or there's a reason they call it a job. If it was fun, everyone would do it. Or, you know, the grass isn't greener on the… isn't always greener on the other side, all of those things. And like those people meant well, but what they told you was not helpful and was probably not accurate. If you're someone who thinks that you might want to do something else, don't let what other people say about that kind of thing keep you from exploring what might be a better fit for you. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening. I absolutely love getting to share this podcast with you. If you haven't yet, I invite you to download my free guide, First Steps to Leaving the Law at formerlawyer.com/first.

Until next time, have a great week.