Because you are a trial lawyer, chances are you're living with all kinds of trauma.
If you’re not okay, you don’t have to suffer.
In today’s podcast episode, I’m joined by my husband (and lead H2H Mindset coach), Kevin, to talk about trial trauma and what we want you to do if you’re struggling.
Don’t skip this one, mah dudes. I fucking mean it.
❤️ Sari
EPISODE 196 TRANSCRIPTION
Sari de la Motte:
Welcome everyone to another episode of From Hostage to Hero. Sari de la Motte here with you today. And also the love of my life, Kevin de la Motte also here, lead Mindset coach at H2H and married to me. Both of those are full-time jobs, so I'm not sure how you're getting it all in.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yes, most definitely.
Sari de la Motte:
And we're here playing footsy, but while we do this podcast.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah, she keeps kicking me with her foot.
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah. Today we're talking about trial trauma, something that Kevin and I wanted to talk about for a while. And we're doing this podcast because we find that so many of our clients are struggling with trial trauma. And so, it was something we wanted to talk about.
And in fact, both of us have personal backgrounds in trauma that we've just realized in the last couple of years. For me personally, childhood stuff and the medical trauma that I've been through with cancer. And for you, being bullied when you were young and a horrific car crash at the age of 22.
Kevin de la Motte:
And also something called vicarious trauma, dealing with going through cancer with my wife and helping her and all that.
Sari de la Motte:
Which is something also that trial attorneys go through what we're going to talk about today.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
So we thought, "Whoa, trial attorneys have this too," as we've been going through our own journey. And we wanted to talk about it.
Now, before we get into it, we want to give you a disclaimer that we are not therapists.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
We cannot diagnose you. We cannot give you medical advice. What we hope to do is open up a conversation about why you may be hung up on a loss, a trial loss or even other losses, and point you to some things that may help.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
So, that's our disclaimer. We are not therapists.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
And we're going to talk about at the end of this podcast, it may come in into the middle, of about the difference between coaching and therapy. And so you can understand the difference.
All right, so I'm just going to be asking Kevin some questions and we're going to get into a conversation about this. But let's first start with the question of, what is trauma?
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, I've read a decent amount about it and I've witnessed it and felt it myself. Really, trauma is something that happens to you and it's a traumatic event. And then it gets trapped in your body. And it can come up in fragments throughout your life where you don't quite know. All of a sudden you get this triggered feeling, something washes over, you get reactive, you're grouchy, and you don't quite know what it is. And it comes in flashes. You might see an image. You might feel something or smell something that reminds you of a certain thing.
But it's one of those things that it just washes over you in an instant and it's trapped inside here. And it can come out at any time.
Sari de la Motte:
I think a really important point is that, when we talk about trauma, people tend to think that they don't have it because they weren't locked into a basement and tortured by someone. And I think we as a society and psychologists and therapists are coming to find that everybody has trauma on some level. It doesn't have to be "this horrifying thing." So, how does trauma then show up in the legal profession?
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, I talked about vicarious trauma. You're experiencing your clients' trauma every single day. You're experiencing so much trauma. You are having trauma of other people in other situations wash over you constantly. And it has to have an effect on you. And it does have an effect on you.
Sari de la Motte:
You mean the things that they're seeing every day?
Kevin de la Motte:
You're seeing. I mean, you're coming across these horrible cases and you're doing this every single day. And I know you probably have experience with being able to compartmentalize. But there's something else that happens that you're probably not noticing or paying attention to. And that's this trauma that's affecting you through your cases.
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah. We're talking about the mangled bodies and the death and the devastation to the families. It's definitely something that trial lawyers deal with all the time.
Kevin de la Motte:
Definitely.
Sari de la Motte:
What about trauma from losing a trial?
Kevin de la Motte:
Well see, that's a big one because I work with that with my clients a lot. And trauma from a trial is one of those things that I know that you have been trained. You have been conditioned throughout your career to do a case, do a trial, and then move on. Next thing, move on.
Sari de la Motte:
Win or lose.
Kevin:
Win or lose, move on. Some of the stuff says maybe give yourself 24 hours to celebrate and then move on.
Well, what happens is you're tamping things down. And there can be some very traumatic events for you in trial. And when you lose, and if you lose and you believe it to be this terrible loss, well, that is traumatic. That is a form of trauma. And if you just push through and go to the next thing, you're tamping it down.
So, guess what happens?
Next time another trial comes up, next time another thing comes up that's similar to that, all of a sudden you're going to feel triggered. You're going to feel like shit. You don't know what's going on. Well, it's because you pushed down those feelings.
Sari de la Motte:
Well, I think too, I talk a lot about on the podcast how you need to let go of winning and that's not your job. But I so love that we're doing this podcast now because, on the other side of the coin is, well then how do you deal with the loss? Right?
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
You can let go of winning, but when you lose, how do you deal with it?
And what we have found in coaching our clients is that they're not dealing with it.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
And doing exactly what you're saying, which is just move on, just push through, just get done.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
And then they're finding that they're scared to go to trial, that when they're in trial, they have a visceral reaction. And that's coming up thankfully in the coaching sessions because we're going to talk about how that can help. But how prevalent do you think this is amongst attorneys? I mean, we're talking just, this happens to a couple of attorneys or across the board? What would you say?
Kevin de la Motte:
Pretty much all my clients. And I have a large group of clients and I have for years. And there's different levels, but it affects all my clients.
Sari de la Motte:
Yes. Let's talk about that because I think that just being a trial attorney is a traumatic experience. Talk a little bit about that.
Kevin:
It is.
Okay, first off, you get that file and you're looking through it and there's some very traumatic stuff in there. But just the actual action of being attacked by defense constantly with email and everything else, you have everything coming at you from all directions. It is fucking crazy. It is so trauma-inducing that I can understand when I talk to my clients, especially when I'm first working with them, how they feel so overwhelmed and they don't know what to do.
And someone like Sari may say, "Okay, well let's block out your calendar. Let's do all these things." But if you haven't worked through this traumatic stuff and the thought work in coaching, you can't even look at your calendar. You're too overwhelmed.
Sari de la Motte:
And thanks for calling me out on my habit to do that.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
But I think it's also the sense that they want to help. I mean, we've talked a lot about... How interesting. I forgot to wear my wedding ring today.
Kevin de la Motte:
And I wore mine.
Sari de la Motte:
Oh my goodness.
Kevin de la Motte:
What is that supposed to mean?
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah. What is it supposed to say?
But they want to help. This is a healing profession. And so there's this huge impetus to do right by their clients, not to mention all the money that they put into their cases and what a risk it is to go to trial. And here we are saying, "Go to trial. That's what being a trial lawyer means." And then they go and they lose. And it is unbelievably devastating.
Kevin de la Motte:
Completely.
Sari de la Motte:
I had a client once. I'm talking about him a little bit later too, who came to me and said, "I lost a trial and I cannot get over it."
And I said, "When was this?"
He said eight months ago. Eight months ago. So, he'd been carrying this for eight months.
Which brings us to the question of how can we tell if we have trauma? What's the difference? I know you talked about this a little bit, but I want to dig into it a little bit more. What's the difference between, "Oh, I lost and that's sad," and, "Oh my gosh, I'm carrying this with me." Maybe I just answered my own question.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, yeah, you're carrying it in a way. So many of my clients say, "I'm up all night. And as soon as I get to trial or as soon as I'm about to get to trial, then all of a sudden there's all the emails flooding in. And I can't sleep. I can't eat. I'm having health problems."
Well, no shit, because you've got all this stuff that you haven't dealt with. And it is just ripping you apart every single day. Of course you're not sleeping. It can be very miserable if you don't deal with what's going on with you. And I'm not saying you always have to have a trauma therapist, but you have to process through your emotions. You can't just push that shit down.
Sari de la Motte:
And I think a lot of trial attorneys just chalk it up to stress. "Well, that's just normal. That's just being a trial attorney."
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah, suck it you.
Sari de la Motte:
"It's part of the job. I'm going to be stressed."
But in our sessions, when we really get down to what they're feeling, it's a deep fear there of, what does it mean if I lose? And what will my colleagues think of me? And I must be the only one who are having these thoughts.
And they carry that into trial. It's traumatizing not only because of the mayhem that they see every day, which took me a while to get to used to when I started trial consulting.
Kevin de la Motte:
Me too.
Sari de la Motte:
And I had to see all that and go through all of that.
But they bring their identity into the courtroom and it gets slashed into pieces. And that in itself is incredibly traumatic. So, I think a lot of trial attorneys don't even know that they have trauma where trial is concerned. But they know something's off. And so, they try to deal with it by not dealing with it.
Let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the things that you've seen trial attorneys do to not deal with this thing that is trial?
Kevin de la Motte:
Launch into work, launch into doing, just become a doing machine. That's all you do is do, do, do, do, do. Or you're drinking, you're overeating, you're buffering. Any free moment that you get a chance to even be with yourself, you've got a device in your face, you're on social media, you're in a CLE. You're making sure that you never have to be with that shit.
Sari de la Motte:
Oh, let's say that again. All of that is to make sure that you never have to be with your trauma.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
Which is, by the way, very normal.
Kevin de la Motte:
It's totally common. I do it too. Everyone does it. It's just, when you've gone through coaching and therapy, you have a chance to catch yourself or you learn how to catch yourself.
Sari de la Motte:
Well, you and I are a great example because the way that you dealt with your trauma for years was drugs and alcohol.
Kevin de la Motte:
Oh, man.
Sari de la Motte:
And the way I've dealt my trauma for years was overworking. So, two or three of the things we see.
Kevin de la Motte:
Workaholic and everything-
Sari de la Motte:
Alcoholic.
Kevin:
... I could get my hands on, drug, alcohol.
Sari de la Motte:
Exactly. Exactly. You're sober now, thank goodness. But that's very normal because we don't have the language around trauma and what it means. And that's exactly one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast because there is help available and you do not need to continue to suffer.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
And in fact, because we are at H2H in the business of creating elite trial attorneys, who not only get awesome results at trial but have awesome lives, we want to make sure that they're dealing with their trauma because that's going to get in the way.
Kevin de la Motte:
This is one of the most, if not the most, important component, getting your mind, getting healthy in mind and body to be able to be the best attorney you can be.
Sari de la Motte:
We have a podcast coming out next month where we're going to talk about how coaching can help. We're going to talk about it a little bit today.
But let's talk a little bit now about not just trial trauma, but how your personal trauma that you may have experienced... Again, we're not therapists. We're going to be sharing our own experiences. It's like trauma wants to magnetize to other trauma. It's drawn to other trauma.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
For example, with you with bullying, how does that show up in your adult life? Right?
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
So, talk a little bit about that.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, I'm short. I'm 5'4". I'm small in stature.
Sari de la Motte:
And adorable.
Kevin de la Motte:
Aw, thank you.
But yeah, I was very small growing up and I got bullied a lot. So, when I'm in situations where I could potentially look like I don't know what I'm doing, say maybe in front of a group of people speaking, there's times where I will get this activation, this activated feeling where I'm breathing high, my shoulders are tight, I am in fight or flight mode because I'm feeling small. And this is the kind of stuff that can come over anybody in court, anything that you're doing in your life, and you don't know what's going on if you haven't done the work.
Sari de la Motte:
Right. You don't understand why it's happening, which is a very powerless feeling.
Kevin de la Motte:
It is extremely powerless.
Sari de la Motte:
For me, it was growing up with a rageaholic father. And so, that made me hyper aware because I learned how to read the signs very early, whether it was a good day or bad day. Because once dinner got swept off the table the first time and I didn't know that was going to happen, I was surprised. I told myself I will never be surprised again.
Now, I don't remember telling myself that as a kid. But now looking back, I recognize that's what I did. And so, then I became hyperaware. And as you know, and I haven't even shared this with our podcast listeners, for years, it's gotten better, but for years I always had to sleep in a bed that was closest to the door. I don't now, as you notice in our bedroom.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah. Well, even when we came down to do this podcast episode, the door's right there. I said, "Do you want to sit in the chair closest to the door?"
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah. There's this escape piece. For me, it was fleeing or freezing, definitely sometimes fight. But there are things. And we're saying this not to you again diagnose, but to get you thinking about how some of maybe some past trauma in your life can get magnified in a trial situation that's similar, not in exactly what's happening, but in the energy. For you, if there's any bullying energy that comes from me or anyone else, it activates that old trauma. We're learning how to deal with that. Or for me, if there's any element of surprise of anything, that activates my trauma, even though the situations may be different.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah. And to touch on that, and it also adds to the definition of trauma, is that what Sari's talking about and what I was talking about when I go in front of people and the trauma gets activated is, another thing about trauma is that you can't differentiate between now and then. It feels like it's happening right now. That's the thing that makes it so damaging in the moment, frightening in the moment, because you feel like you are in it. You feel like you're being bullied. You feel like you're being abused, whatever it be, in that moment.
Sari de la Motte:
And what I understand about trauma is that this is why cognitive behavioral therapy isn't always helpful because the body takes an imprint of what happened. And because of it, we talk about it all the time of this podcast, our brains are wired to keep us safe. And so, it gets this memory, a body memory, that says... Your brain says, "Okay, if this ever happens again, we'll know what to do. We'll protect ourselves. We'll fight, we'll flee, we'll freeze."
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
And so when something, just like I was saying has the same energy, the body remembers it. But cognitively, you're like, "What the hell's going on right now?"
Kevin de la Motte:
No. And that's the disassociation from the mind and the body. And that's what happens when trauma hits you. You get split. It's like you're bifurcated, head here, body here, and they're not together. And it's very scary and confusing.
Sari de la Motte:
And this is just bringing up for me how I always say that lawyers ignore their bodies. And they just believe that it's a way to carry their brains around because they love their brains. And I'm so much like that in my life. And I think that's why I connect with this group so much.
But I have to wonder if that's because so many trial attorneys I know in my own practice with my personal clients and also with yours have trauma backgrounds.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah, very common.
Sari de la Motte:
There has to be something that drew them to this. Like I said, trauma attracts trauma. And almost in a way of trying to heal it, their own trauma, they're trying to heal someone else's trauma. I'm having a major light bulb moment right now.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah, yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
We haven't even talked about this, which really brings us to why you must heal your trauma. You and I were talking about this and use the analogy of the boxer.
Kevin de la Motte:
Okay, think about this. If you're a boxer and you go into the ring, I've just watched a lot of boxing movies. I don't know much about boxing. But you have to be focused and flow and have a clear head. So, you come in the ring and your head is filled with all of this, let's say, past boxing match trauma.
Sari de la Motte:
I would say your body is filled with it.
Kevin de la Motte:
Okay, your body is, yeah. But this past trauma starts flooding you in the ring. How do you think you're going to fight?
Sari de la Motte:
And that's what they do.
Kevin:Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
They are fighters.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
So, they must deal with their trauma. And now I'm really getting, just even here as we're talking about it, that they're probably drawn to trial law because of their trauma background, that it's even more important that they deal with this so that it doesn't activate them and consistently trigger them. And in fact, I believe that it can help them become better trial lawyers, which we're going to talk about in just a minute.
But let's talk about how to heal from trial trauma. As we talked about, it's not always something that you can talk through. I'm going to go back to my client who was carrying that loss for eight months. In fact, he wasn't even my client at that time. We just connected and he shared this with me very openly. And I said let's get on a phone call. I wasn't going to charge him anything.
And what did we do? What did we do in that scenario? We didn't talk about it. We didn't discuss it. I said, "Here's what I think is happening. You haven't felt the loss. Are you willing to feel it now with some guidance?"
And he said, "I think so."
And so, I just took him back to what that felt like and what it feels like now to carry that around and all of the emotions. And we didn't really talk very much. I just kind of guided him into this to the point where we both were sitting on the floor. We were different places in the United States, we were on the phone, but we both got on the floor and he was sobbing, literally sobbing. He'd never allowed himself to feel the loss.
And to this day, he will say that changed his life. He'll constantly told me because he did become a client of mine. He's like, "That moment changed everything."
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
"Everything changed because I was carrying that with me." And really the fix, and it's not always this easy, but this is one way to fix it is to just process it.
Kevin de la Motte:
Exactly.
Sari de la Motte:
And we do a lot of that in coaching.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, yeah. And that itself in coaching, we call it process coaching. It's the closest thing to therapy.
Now, we're not being therapist. That might sounded like it was a therapy session. No. We just get them to be with that emotion as close as they can and we guide them through it. And it's present-focused. It's not past-focused. It's very present-focused in what they're feeling, what they're going through.
But the same, I do this with my clients. The way that they can process and heal from a loss is, I always start a call, if they just had a trial, win or lose, do you want to unpack the trial? And we'll have debrief it until they start talking about it. And then, if they lost, we will go through the loss, how it went down. "Let's hash it out. Tell me all about it. And what was it like where when you were there, the room, people, everything?"
So, you can bring them there and they process it. And then after that I say, "Okay, what would you do differently?"
And then we do the same type of approach visualization wise and process through what they would do differently. And it's a way of processing through the bad, the loss, the trauma, and then a way of seeing that there's a potential on the other side of what you learned. And it's been hugely therapeutic for a lot of my clients. And you're processing through those emotions.
Sari de la Motte:
Well, it also rewires the brain.
Kevin de la Motte:
It really does.
Sari de la Motte:
There's research that shows the brain cannot tell the difference between something that's actually happening and a visualization. It's the same thing.
I don't know how they tell this. But they hooked up athletes who were actually practicing versus thinking about practicing. And the same neurons were firing and all of the things. And so, taking your brain back through and having a different experience is going to help you manage the trauma that you had.
But there's another way to process. For example, you were talking about vicarious trauma. And you particularly, because you coach a lot more than I do. I do consulting and coaching and you are primarily coaching. You coach four to five clients a day every day week. You will go to play your drums after you're done, before you come upstairs for dinner.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
There's this processing it out through exercise or drumming. So, that's another way that you don't necessarily have to work with a coach, it's helpful, or a therapist. But just putting something in your day... This is why I have in the blocking out of the calendars. Everybody block out a week after trial and count it as trial prep, i.e., it's downtime after trial to process it out.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, it's important that it's connected to the body because you're all doers. We're all doers. But you trial attorneys especially are doers. And that's so you don't have to be with stuff and you don't have to be with yourself really. So, I play my drums and I have that something that I do every day. And my clients, we work through, "Okay, what's the thing that's just for you and how can you give yourself that every day?"
And being able to do something like playing the drums, sports, yoga, even just breathing, just taking a minute to slow down, is extremely healing.
Sari de la Motte:
And I think it's very important too because I think attorneys are very cognitive-focused. I mean, this is why they want to read. They want to watch court TV. They want to do things passively. When we try to get them to stand up or try it out, it's like so nerve-wracking for them.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, and talking about bringing it with you, maybe a lot of people have a hard time in our membership at first because they don't want to stand up in front of a group and be flooded by all that last trial there.
Sari de la Motte:
Oh, that's so true.
Kevin de la Motte:
Oh my God.
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah. And that's the only way to get through your trial trauma is through the body.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
And if you read some of the resources we're going to share with you today, they'll say the same thing. You can try to figure it out in your brain, which is what trial lawyers will want to do. It's, the answer isn't there. The answer is in the body. And the answer is connecting to the body through the breathing, through the yoga, through the feeling of the emotions, with hopefully someone who can guide you, a coach or a therapist.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
And doing the things like exercise and drumming to process out. Maybe you haven't had a trial loss, but you've heard a horrific story in your office that day. You need to build in the time to process it out. Because as you said, they are warriors. They are fighting. And so, taking care of themselves, not just physically, but in this emotional, mental way is part of becoming an elite trial attorney. If you don't do this, you will get burned out. You will feel overwhelmed. You will not be at your best in trial.
Kevin de la Motte:
It's not just part, it's essential. It's essential.
Sari de la Motte:
Some resources that people can check out to help with their trauma, the book Body Keeps the Score is fantastic.
Kevin de la Motte:
Wow. That is the bible of trauma.
Sari de la Motte:
Yep.
Kevin de la Motte:
It is. It's a great book.
Sari de la Motte:
Absolutely helpful. And I know you love guys love to read, so you'll love that.
Another book that I just picked up is called Becoming Safely Embodied. One of the things that we don't like to do if we have trauma is to be with ourselves as we talked about.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
Because it's not safe. Our body has this memory. We don't understand what's going on. So we're like, "I don't ever want to feel that again. So I'll just go and buffer and do all these things." This book talks about how to safely be in your body. It's fantastic.
If you're wondering if you have trauma, you can literally Google trauma quiz and a bunch will come up. We'll put some of the ones that we recommend in the show notes, just so you can sense. I'll tell you right now. I'm not diagnosing you, but I believe most trial attorneys have trauma. As Kevin said, trial attorneys deal in trauma. They work with trauma. Their clients have trauma. They probably had trauma. That's why they picked this career. But trial itself is trauma.
Kevin de la Motte:
And a lot of trial attorneys, because of the horrific things they see, when you bring up trauma, they say, "I don't have trauma. I've seen trauma. I know trauma."
Sari de la Motte:
Yeah, exactly.
Kevin de la Motte:
But no, there's such a huge spectrum of trauma.
Sari de la Motte:
That's right. That's right.
Kevin de la Motte:
Such a huge spectrum.
Sari de la Motte:
That's right. And so even if you get the book, Body Keeps the Score and you're reading about these horrific stories, don't do what I did. It was like, "Oh my gosh, mine isn't even anything near this."
Kevin de la Motte:
Exactly.
Sari de la Motte:
There's no trauma contest.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
The basic gist of trauma is, if there's something that you cannot let go, even if you've tried, it's most likely trauma.
Kevin de la Motte:
If those patterns keep happening, like in coaching, when someone is running up against the same issues and the same patterns and they're just like, "I can't fix this. I don't know why, I don't know why," that is points to therapy. That's something that needs to be addressed. It's deeper. It's not just thought work.
Sari de la Motte:
Exactly. That was my two other things, coaching and therapy. And we're going to talk about why you would choose one over the other.
When I talk about coaching, I want to be really clear that I only recommend Coactive-trained coaches.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
That's not because I think other coaches are bad. It's only because I know what CTI, Coactive Coaching, the training institute teaches because I've been through it. I'm certified in it. Kevin's certified in it. Our coaches are certified in it here at H2H, so I can fully stand behind that.
Again, it is not therapy and you may need one or the other. Talk to us a little bit about how they would know whether coaching could help or whether they needed a therapist to deal with trial trauma.
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, when it comes to coaching, if you're coming in and you really want to get past whatever things that are tripping you up or you want to take your practice to the next level, these are a lot of different coaching things. But say if you are with a coach, like I just said, that can come up and that can point to therapy.
But if you are just completely doing all the time and every time you try to slow down, you're buffering, every time you try to slow down, you're avoiding things, there's just something else there. There's an issue there that's more in the body. And that's when you will know that you need therapy, which is very common. I have a therapist. Sari has a therapist.
Sari de la Motte:
In addition to our coaches.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yes.
Sari de la Motte:
And that's the other reason I recommend a CTI over other coaching because we are trained to recognize when someone needs therapy. That might be another thing is that you may hire a coach, whether it's through H2H, but you can go to coactive.com and look for their coaches. Kevin is full unfortunately, but we've got two other coaches that are certified or getting certified in our team that can-
Kevin:
Fantastic coaches. Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
Fantastic coaches. But they are trained. So, that's one thing that you can try. Maybe you hire a coach and you find out, "Oh man, I actually need a therapist."
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
You can also skip coaching and go right to therapy.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
The point is that trial attorney, not everybody's going to need therapy.
Kevin de la Motte:
No.
Sari de la Motte:
We're not saying that. But the point is that trial attorneys do have trial trauma. It is a traumatic event, just by the nature of what it is and what is at stake and what you are fighting for and the things that are happening to your client. And to be at your best, you have to deal with your trauma. That is the point of this podcast.
Anything else you want to say before we go?
Kevin de la Motte:
Well, I know that there could be a lot of you out there that are very reluctant about this or don't want to. I have clients that push back about therapy. Or even maybe you're reluctant about coaching or you say you don't have any time.
The only thing I can say for you is that if you are able to make coaching and therapy work, so much opens up in your life that the idea of not having enough time starts to just go away. You start to see things from a different perspective. And that's what coaching is all about. And therapy helps you. When you keep running up against these things that you feel like you have no hope, you can't get past, you just suck, you can't get any better, well, most likely there's somebody out there that can help you through this. You're not alone.
Sari de la Motte:
And you don't have to suffer.
Kevin de la Motte:
You don't have to suffer.
Sari de la Motte:
I think we put up with way too much as trial lawyers. I say we. I am not a trial lawyer. But we just assume it's part of the job and that this is part of the job.
Fuck no, it's not.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yep.
Sari de la Motte:
Fuck shit, I was going to say, I was trying to combine my swearing there.
Kevin de la Motte:
Yeah.
Sari de la Motte:
You're not alone. There is help available. And not only that, you must get help. Check out our February 10th podcast coming out where we talk about the 10 reasons why a trial lawyer needs a coach.
Until then, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Kevin for being here.
Kevin de la Motte:
And thank you for being here and listening and I love you all out there. I say it and a lot of people are like, "Yeah, whatever." No, I'm a lover. I love you all.
Sari de la Motte:
Yep. We love all of our clients, so thank you for being here. We'll talk next week.
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