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I recently attended a leadership workshop that spoke of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). The day started with a conversation on how Emotional Intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at work, and achieve your goals.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve (not eliminate) stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and refract conflict.

Emotional intelligence impacts the way we behave and the way we interact with others. Emotional intelligence consists of four attributes:

Self-awareness – Recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior while knowing your strengths and weaknesses.

Self-management – Controlling rash behaviors, managing your emotions in healthy ways, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Social awareness – Understanding the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, staying present to pick up on emotional cues while recognizing the power dynamics in a group.

Relationship management – Develop and maintain virtuous relationships, communicate clearly, inspire others, work well in a team, and manage conflict.

As we know, it’s not the smartest people that are the most successful. We all know folks whom are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Intellectual intelligence or IQ isn’t enough on its own to be successful in life. IQ can help you get into college but it’s EQ that will help you manage the stress and emotions of sitting your final exams.

In order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure, you need to learn how to take advantage of the powerful emotional parts of the brain that remain active and accessible even in times of stress. This means that you can’t just “study” or read about emotional intelligence to “get” it. You have to experience and practice the skills in your everyday life.

Develop your stress busting skills by working through the following three steps:

Realize when you’re stressed – The first step to reducing stress is recognizing what stress feels like. How does your body feel when you’re stressed? Are your muscles or stomach tight or sore? Are your hands clenched? Is your breath shallow? Being aware of your physical response to stress will help regulate tension when it occurs.

Find your stress response – Everyone reacts differently to stress. If you tend to become angry or agitated under stress, you will respond best to stress relief activities that quiet you down. If you tend to become depressed or withdrawn, you will respond best to stress relief activities that are stimulating. If you tend to freeze—speeding up in some ways while slowing down in others—you need stress relief activities that provide both comfort and stimulation.

Find stress-busting tools that work for you – The best way to reduce stress quickly is by engaging your senses: sight, sound and touch for example. Each person responds differently to sensory input, so find things that are soothing and/or energizing to you. If you’re a visual person you can relieve stress by quickly viewing a powerful quote or photo you have hanging in your office. If auditory, music, or the sound of a motivational speaker helps to quickly reduce your stress levels.

High levels of stress will get in the way of your ability to accurately “read” a situation, hear what someone else is saying, be aware of your own feelings and needs, and communicate clearly i.e., impact cash flow, team and referrals coming into the office. It’s vital to learn how to quickly calm yourself and diffuse stressful situations to stay focused, and in control–no matter what challenges you face or how stressful a situation becomes.

Because let’s face it, in the world of a solo-prenuer, stress free is not an option. Stress is inevitable, it is all in how you manage and react to it.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

I remember a time when every time I suggested we have a meeting, bodies would cringe. In retrospect I don't blame them. Most meetings are wholly ineffective. But when you examine the purpose of meetings and the distinction between a great meeting and a frustrating meeting, it quickly becomes apparent how important they are, but more importantly how to make every meeting a powerful one.

Most people become frustrated with meetings because they tend to be a “bitch” session, an opportunity for people to share what's not working. Often meetings lack structure or intended results prior to the meeting. Instead they're meant as a session to “figure it out”. While on occasion these meetings may be necessary, they are not productive and often lead to frustration.

There are two types of powerful meetings. (1) The first is check-in meetings; that is, meetings on a regular basis (once a week in our office) where you check in with everyone else to see how the firm or individuals are doing as compared to the goals and standards that have been set. This type of meeting is to ensure accountability is essential for long-term personal and firm success. (2) The second powerful meeting is a discovery meeting. In a discovery meeting you bring different perspectives together from key individuals that you think are important in making a critical decision. The significance of making these meetings successful is that you must have a controlled agenda as to time and parameters around each part of the meeting that provide for:

1) brain dump time; a time where all can shoot out ideas without judgment!
2) refinement time; when all of the issues raised are refined to identify the most important and relevant ones, and then
3) strategic time; when the participants strategize a solution to the core objective for the meeting that was potentially not even conceived prior to the beginning of the meeting.

Check-in meetings and discovery meetings, when managed and facilitated properly, can be very empowering and lead to major breakthroughs in firm operations and individual growth.

So the next time you have a meeting don't cringe, make it a powerful one.

Dave Zumpano, Estate Planning Attorney, Just Like You!

What is the greatest success you’ve had since joining LWP?

We have successfully used the systems to develop a referral network from other professionals. It has gained momentum and now drives clients to our workshops, and to appointments, every month.

What is your favorite LWP tool? I appreciate the live listserv. Whenever I’m looking for an answer I can’t find elsewhere, the live listserv gives me a way to not only ask a question but to have a dialogue and drill down into an issue in detail. Then I’m able to go back to the recording later and listen again if I need to. I also learn quite a bit from hearing the answers to other callers’ questions.

How has being part of LWP impacted your team and your practice?

Our estate planning practice has become a much more central part of our practice, and we’re taking the initiative as a team to keep our pipeline full. Rather than waiting for, and responding to, the latest “crisis” case, we’re helping our clients make effective long-range estate and asset protection plans – and getting paid well to do so. The LWP community gives us a support network to make sure we stay on track.

To learn more about our membership, please visit us at www.lawyerswithpurpose.com

The average enrollment cycle in the Estate Planning arena is 9-18 months. Now, that might sound horrifically long, but it’s the absolute raw truth. And it’s no phenomenon that Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorneys that I talk to across the county are experiencing the same thing in their own practices.

The irony, the coincidence. There’s a saying my initial mentor taught me: “So go the coach, so go the coachee.” The very reason most attorneys struggle with how to guide clients to a decision is because they are unwilling to do so themselves. Which radiates an essence of the following decision making process Over explain … Process …. Deflect … Confuse … Repeat

As an industry, attorneys are incapable of active choice without a tremendous amount of internal (possibly financial) suffering. Call it a tribe of high “Fact Finders™” or law school conditioning to research and analysis until there is no law review, case study or white paper unturned. In my humble opinion, the core of the matter is none of the above. It boils down to 1 word. Permission.

Permission, is letting go of your beliefs or a structure that no longer serves you. It’s walking away from the all or nothing thinking and no longer buying into “the way things are supposed to be.” It’s a willingness to be in a place of uncertainty and move into a place of possibility.

It’s also about honoring ourselves, what we desire from life, and letting go of worry, guilt, and blame. Sometimes permission is about how you are being, and other times permission is about what you are doing. Sometimes permission is so that we can grow, other times it’s so we can let go. Permission is a conscious decision and conversation that takes place in your head — and likely your heart

Permission shows up in our life daily as we are bombarded with choices, decisions, dilemmas and change that require us decide and declare (or not). Most often, we recognize the need for permission when we have a deep need for certainty (evidence) or when we are going against what others are wanting from us. Permission is an internal battle.

We see the need for permission to show up in our life in situations as diverse as deciding on whether or not to attend an event, terminate an employee, leave a marriage, spend your savings and retirement on a new adventure or if you should join a new organization (again), parenting, whether to go home at night, take time off of work. The list goes on and on.

Once you recognize the role permission plays in your life, you’ll see how almost every decision and choice is being driven by this silent control freak. When we can bring awareness to this internal meter of “right, wrong, good, bad, yes or no,” we can move into a place of being able to make the choices that are best for us at the time — without endless research (fear), guilt, shame and the need for certainty.

Well, maybe there will still be a little fear, but fear is a motivator and adaptable: especially when you are operating from a place of permission instead of resistance. At the end of the day giving you permission boils down to putting the oxygen mask on yourself first. And that’s a hard nut for most of us to crack.

The client really wants to make certain they protect their daughter from that good for nothing son in law. But without permission the selfish, judgmental voice speaks in stereo. Many attorneys have been asked by their clients at the end of the vision meeting, “Tell me what to do?” And likewise from attorneys that are about to make an investment in joining LWP.

But I can’t tell them what to do, and even if I did, it wouldn’t relieve them of any pain or uncertainty because they haven’t given themselves permission to decide and declare. They can take my advice but it won’t work because they didn’t come to it on their own. However, if I own my role as a shepherd, guide, coach and unwavering stand to lead them to a place of permission, to allow decision, decision is made. With confidence, peace and maybe even a bit of excitement.

What makes our LWP community unique is we hold our members accountable to their path and plan while providing the infrastructure to achieve it. Our members tell us they are accomplishing their goals, can finally delegate , trust their team to lead, while making more money and feel confident it won’t all break. This isn’t all our members, only the ones whom have given themselves permission. And I feel strongly that is the value proposition you bring to your clients, to declare and commit to a path and plan they believe in.

Molly Hall

Seems most of my business coaching clients are creating/experiencing some form of overwhelm lately. I want to start with stating that overwhelm is a state of mind and a way of being. It is NOT a set of circumstances. It is resistance to what is. It is NOT loving what is going on. The DISTINCT difference of how to STOP overwhelm is what you are willing to do about it and taking responsibility in it.

Don’t Ask… Present!

Think about it… if you are asking your boss, the business owner, for a raise, you want to speak his language, right? You want to put it in terms that make sense to him. Well, let’s consider how he gets paid. Ultimately, he puts dollars in his pocket from getting clients to hire him.

Now, to obtain this money, he doesn’t ask clients to hire him… he has to make a presentation of your company’s services and conclude it with the price it will cost the client to have these services.

So often we forget that we, as employees, should treat our bosses as we treat our clients. We would never show our worst side to our clients. We make the extra effort to make sure things are presented and prepared well for them. We should do the same for our bosses. Often, when working in a small business, things are casual and you work closely with your boss, which is great, but it can allow us to get too comfortable, or even sloppy, in our presentation to our boss. It’s not that you can’t be comfortable or even have a friendship with your boss, but you should always make sure you are presenting yourself as a valuable resource. Make sure they have facts about the results you produce–tracking reports, sales numbers, clients billed, and so forth. This is never more important than when you are making a presentation for a raise.

So, when you feel it’s time to discuss a raise, schedule a meeting and prepare a presentation. Never bring personal issues into the conversation (i.e., personal financial struggles, the cost of childcare or tuition, your divorce, etc.) Again, working in a small office can lend an aura of intimacy that sometimes just isn’t appropriate in certain conversations, like asking for a raise. It’s often hard to draw a line between “what goes” and “what doesn’t,” but you should be able to tell by instinct and by reading your boss’s personality. So, discussing personal issues with your boss depends on your relationship.

However, even if you do talk about these things, they don’t belong in this discussion about a raise. You should never request or receive a raise based on personal need. You should request and receive a raise based on your value to the company. Use the formula in this chapter to present your value and get your raise.

There’s a Time and a Place

Nothing can hijack a conversation more than the wrong time or place. In an already potentially awkward conversation, eliminate distractions and disruptions that can make you lose control of the setting. Carving out quality time to present your proposal is a slippery slope. This doesn’t have to be a desperate thing. Don’t grab any 10 free minutes your boss might have. That would result in bad timing, lack of his attention, and usually a “let me think about it and get back to you” answer because there isn’t enough time to work it through together.

Getting Down to It

So, now you’re here for the meeting. Your boss is paying attention, and it’s Showtime! First, always thank your boss: “Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me today. I appreciate it.” Next, acknowledge him. “I know you have a lot to do, so I’ll keep our time commitment and make sure we stay on track.” Then, get to it. “I’d like to go over with you where I’ve grown over the past and share the value I have produced and talk about where I would like to grow over the next year. I want to make sure it’s in line with what you need from me and that you see how I can support you and the firm more. And I’d like to talk about how to value the role I currently play in the firm. I have some ideas I’d like to share with you.”

Usually, a boss is more than willing to listen to your suggestions and give feedback, and prefers this to having to come up with all the ideas himself. And usually you end up with a decision closer to what you ultimately wanted if you initiate the ideas!

Now, there’s a dangerous pause where you can lose control of the meeting. Let your boss reply, but don’t let him start throwing out ideas and thoughts. Go over what you have prepared before you start brainstorming about the future. So, if your boss starts to toss around ideas, politely interject:

“Great, let me jot down what you said so we don’t forget that idea, and if I could, let me run through what I’ve accomplished over the past (time frame since last raise). I found it very interesting when I reviewed it, and I think it will help us see what I am capable of in the future as well.”

See how we just “spun” this from being a laundry list of things you have done to an essential part of the “future idea” process? It’s much more engaging for a business owner.

Are you willing to let some things go, accept reality? Can you appreciate your full plate? Can you appreciate your full schedule? Can you find a peaceful center when dealing with things that normally drown you into worrying? Can you love pressure and respond appropriately? Can you find the right question to ask yourself? Tony Robbins recommends these questions when faced with a big problem:

1. What is not perfect yet?
3. What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
4. What am I willing to no longer do to make it the way I want it?
5. How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

The idea is to focus on solution rather than the problem itself. Remember, overwhelm is not a set of circumstances. It is resistance to what is. The DISTINCT difference of how to STOP overwhelm is what you are willingness to stop and restart and take responsibility.

Shared with permission by “Don’t be a Yes chick…”

Molly Hall

I delivered a workshop yesterday to another sell-out crowd of 60 plus year-olds. The most predominant question they wanted to know? How do I protect my assets from the government, nursing homes, lawsuits and family predators. As I presented my two hour workshop that day, I found them begin to unwind and see the many challenges they face without proper planning. Notwithstanding my education on beneficiary designated accounts, asset protection to loved ones, after that the importance of customized wills, health care proxies, powers of attorney and personal care plan, the conversations was dominated by asset protection now.

As I explained the power of the IPUG, an asset protection trust that the client is allowed to maintain control and continue to derive the income from, and even benefit from without direct access to the assets, the clients’ eyes got wider. What intrigued them most was that they can stay in control and that they could change their beneficiaries if they needed to. Most of them declared they really didn’t need it, but they wanted to make sure it was available for them if they did and more importantly for their loved ones, if it was needed for them now or any time prior to the client’s death. I was intrigued to see how important this was to the client but not surprised when 90% of them signed up for a vision meeting to identify the best strategy for them to protect their assets and their family.

Still perplexed like so many attorneys that are so afraid to do what is so common and so settled under the law. The last lawyer who had questions I referred to my law review article, “Irrevocable Tier Grantor Trust, The Estate Planning Landscape Has Changed”. The significance of the article is that it relies on law, not emotion and not on what other lawyers “say” but in fact what the law says. More exciting is that there is no law in contrast to these fundamental principles that a grantor can be the trustee of his own irrevocable trust even when he is the beneficiary. But for those that don’t see it, it’s okay. We have plenty of capacity to do trusts for your client as well!

Hindsight is such a tricky thing. We’ve all dealt (tolerated) with the “good enough” employee. After a few weeks we start to see little hints. You find yourself explaining the same thing, over and over. Consistently talking them off the ledge when they are “overwhelmed”. They start calling in sick…when was the last time YOU took a sick day? Or the 1st flake of snow they say they can’t make it in because of fear the local weather channel is breathing into the community because the news is lacking anything of substance for the day.

Or maybe the signs aren’t that blatant, there simply is just something “off”. Like a chip missing or batteries not included. But you “muscle through” or start to question yourself because maybe your unrelenting standards or expectations are too high. It is only an “X” dollar an hour employee after all. Or you really start diving deep with justifying their personal situation or feeling responsible for their livelihood. The list drones on and on.

Nonetheless, when do you know your tolerating “good enough?” Let me introduce you to our star player, Marci Otts. Marci has been with LWP for 1 ½ years now. Marci experienced our baptism by fire training process that delicately includes consistently last minute changes and “emergencies.” Not long after finally truly understanding her role and goals, the head of finance quit. Marci stepped up and assumed the role of finance without an official training process. We then decided to rebrand the entire company, including the creation of a new website where 1,000’s of video, audio and word files needed to be moved in less than 1 week. Once again, Marci stepped up. In an organization of change and growth, the one thing you can depend on is constant change. And for an 8 follow through, that can be daunting!

The past 90 days have been challenging for all with rebranding the company, year end, the new year, etc. Last night, I received an email from Marci that pretty much sums up the difference between good enough and a team member whom is beyond invested in the not only the future of the company but making certain they are with you until the end.

“Can I say how amazing it is that I still think about work when I am at home, and in such a positive light! I wanted to write before I got back into work in the morning as it is really resonating with me at the moment. It is such a testament to our work when we receive feedback with such excitement and pride, I am floored by our members, and those that have chosen to push through their fears and own the future they are growing into. Just astounding. We are surrounded with such positive energy and it only reiterates that we are doing something so good and so true. I am so proud to be part of this organization. I see such a difference in those that chose their futures…whether at our retreat or during their coaching calls…we have a tidal wave of positive energy on our hands and it is my intention to continue to guide our members on this path! I want to take a moment as well to thank Dave, Molly and Victoria. I have been touched on a personal and professional level and I only see remarkable things in our future. You know you have truly found your place when you love the people you work with, the people you work for and the future you are creating is better than anything you ever could have imagined!”

So when do you know your tolerating the good enough employee? You see glimmers of the above stated email….daily. You see it within the 1st few weeks of them starting with you, and you see blatant evidence of it 12 yrs after them being with you. It really is that straightforward and simple. We just tend to complicate it by justifying how its not that bad. I have Marci’s message hanging right on my wall in my office to remind me the next time I get that feeling that so and so “may” not work out to choose the short term suffering route and move on to attract another superstar vs. good enough.

Molly Hall

What is the greatest success you’ve had since joining LWP?

The greatest success I have had since joining LWP has to be, without a doubt, establishing relationships through synergy meetings. I have bankers, financial advisors, assisted living facilities, social workers and even Medicaid Office workers referring clients to me. Granted it takes a while to get these referral sources to provide clients (have to establish trust). By no means am I a salesman, but when I explain the PROCESS!!! we use and the follow through we offer, people are very comfortable referring their clients to us.

What is your favorite LWP tool?

This is actually a very tough question to answer because we don’t use anything else but the LWP tools. When I say nothing else, I mean nothing else. No retainer agreements, not an interview questionnaire, not even a separate design template. If I had to pick just one tool that is my favorite it would be the Estate Plan Audit sheet. It makes it so easy for us to use the Vision Clarifier because I can show the client exactly what plans cover what is important to the client.

How has being part of LWP impacted your team and your practice?

LWP provides structure that we otherwise would not have. Its systems are purposeful and deliberate. LWP has allowed us to enroll clients, not just retain clients. LWP also provides the tools that allow us to focus our practice, track our clients efficiently, and provide the exact product the client desires not just push the client into a trust of our choosing.

Last week I spent three days with estate planning attorneys training them on what they were already masters at, Medicaid and asset protection planning. I was intrigued by the end of the three days how perplexed they were at how much they didn’t know. All of the options and variations one can have when drafting a trust or asset protection plan. Most notably however was the response when they were able to see for the first time how document creation software can be more than a trust drafting system.

For example, they learned how designing a trust with the client became a celebration and an experience as we walked the client through their lifetime and asked them the various questions of what they would want to have happen. The power of customizing at every single decision point was especially intriguing. But most exciting was the result of the design experience that created a highly customized trust that was part of a package that generated all the documents necessary for the plan that the client created.

Then, what shocked them even more was discovering how the software was merely the culmination of an entire education-based client enrollment system of teaching clients what they don’t know in a two-hour workshop, followed by revisiting the 15 major challenges in estate planning and comparing them to the prospective clients current plan to identify where all the holes were. Finally allowing the client to identify which of the missing issues were most critical for them to solve.

Their process once again culminated in choosing an estate plan or asset protection plan that was hand picked by the client, based on their needs, not on software the lawyer used. The beauty of it all came together when the attorneys learned how they could design a plan according to a structure which confidently allowed them to delegate the drafting of the trust to staff.

The excitement of these lawyers seeing drafting like this. And for the first time that they may not have to draft trusts and doing estate planning could be something far greater than just legal work, but rather a creation of documents that exemplify the client’s life and goals.

I just returned from presenting a three-day training for attorneys on how to provide asset protection planning to their clients. The primary concern obviously being loss of a lifetime of assets in nursing homes.

The attendees were shocked to learn how technology can support them in not only their legal-technical needs, but also their marketing. By utilizing a process that identifies the legal issues relevant to strategic spend-down planning, technology becomes your best friend. Right before their very eyes they witnessed how utilizing the law in a processed way can quickly and easily provide them the answer to their clients’ asset protection and Medicaid needs.

They learned how to use our Medicaid qualification worksheet and how it follows the law and provides the key answers that clients need, and they saw the full power of technology. They saw how the Medicaid planning software not only generated the asset protection plan, but also the funding plan AND an opinion letter for the client or their financial advisor. Not only did it provide an opinion letter for the client but also a visual graph of what assets were going to be protected and what would be at risk and for how long.

Finally legal-technical competency meets technology and as a result everybody wins: the lawyer, the client, and your family! And your team because once everything is generated from the software it is neatly tucked away in a file for a thorough documentation of everything that is input.