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.

Today, I want to talk about whether you need to know what you want to do in order to work with me. It's interesting because this is a question that I get somewhat regularly from people when I do consults with them. And we'll be talking and they'll say something to me like, I really don't want to be doing this job, but I have no idea what it is that I want to do. And they'll basically ask me, do I need to go away and figure out at least some options of what I might be interested in to get the most out of working with you? And the answer to that, if you are someone who's thinking about doing a consult and have that question, is no, you do not need to know what it is that you want to do. In fact, what I do, what I specialize in is working with people who do not know what it is that they want to do.

And most of the people I work with would say, I don't know what it is that I want to do that isn't practicing law. I have no idea what alternative career I might want to do. And I don't even know how to figure it out. I don't even know what my options are. Like, it's all just sort of a complete black box that I can't see inside and do not know. So some career coaches that you work with are more geared towards helping you land the job that you already know that you want.

And I can and do work with people who know what it is that they want to do and are wanting to target it or wanting to do interview prep and like that sort of thing, especially around gearing their resume towards a non-legal, non-practicing job. But I also do what a lot of career coaches don't do, which is I work with people who do not know what it is that they want to do and need some sort of process to follow so that they can go from question mark, question mark to having things to target.

Since people who are scheduling consults with me have this question, that tells me that people in general, many people probably have this question, and so that's why I wanted to talk about this specifically. If you feel like you need to already know what you want to do next before you're ready to work with me, that is not accurate. In fact, you, person who has no idea what it is that you want to do other than it is not this, this thing that I'm currently doing, this legal job that I'm currently doing, you are like my ideal client.

The people who I love working with are lawyers who are like, I don't want to do this, but I have no idea what it is that I want to do. And I don't know how to figure it out. Because that's like a really overwhelming place to be.

That's where I found myself when I was still practicing at the law firm. Not knowing what it is that you want to do is part of the reason why you might work with me specifically, because that is one of the things that I focus on and specialize in, in addition to alternative careers for lawyers and figuring out how to sort of position yourself for a non-legal job as a lawyer. Just to reiterate, if you don't know what it is that you want to do, that is great.

And I would love to work with you. You do not have to like go figure out some things or at least some basic stuff or like whatever in order for working together to be fruitful. In fact, if you're someone in that position, you are probably going to get the most benefit out of working with me because I have a lot of experience working with people in that position and helping them go from, I have no idea. Like, I have no idea. I don't even know what I'm missing. Like, I don't know to here are the options that are compelling. Here are the options that match my values and strengths and skills and personality. And here's how I'm going to target those things. 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. Until next time, have a great week.