#567: From Quiet to Confident: Redefining Success as an Introverted Lawyer, with Heidi Brown

Episode Notes

Transcript

Zack Glaser:

Hi, I’m Zack.

Sara Muender:

And I’m Sara. And this is episode 5 67 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Zack talks with law professor and author Heidi Brown about being an introvert and how it can be a superpower.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, this was a fun conversation, Sara, and it makes me think, because we get into some very specifics of introvert is, if that’s a word, but being an introvert versus shy and versus social anxiety and all that. So fundamental question, Sara, are you an introvert?

Sara Muender:

I would consider myself an outgoing introvert. So I don’t know if that term is used in her book or if you talk about that in the conversation. I shall find out when I listen,

But I’ve been described by my mom and by therapists and people who really know me, who can pick my brain apart as being inherently shy. But I don’t think that you would pick that up if you were just meeting me or interacting with me because I’m confident I exude a confidence. In fact, most people say that I’m intimidating, which I don’t. That’s one of those things where I’m like, what? I don’t see myself as intimidating at all, but I’ll go with it. Okay. I mean, so actually, so first, the longest time I tried to fight that and be like, I’m not intimidating and prove why I’m not intimidating. But then lately I’ve been kind of just going with it and walk into a room. You think I’m confident. You think I’m intimidating, I am confident. I don’t see myself as intimidating, but whatever. We’re just going to go with that.

Zack Glaser:

Let’s

Sara Muender:

Still be kind.

Zack Glaser:

How do you refill your cup? Do you go read? Do you go kind of into safe space or I refill my cup bike, but going and being out,

Sara Muender:

Getting

Zack Glaser:

Out into the world and seeing people and doing things

Sara Muender:

Too Peopley.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, I get it. Well, I say I get it. I don’t get that, but I understand that it exists of like I got to go. I mean, I have my moments where I’m like at conferences or something, I’ve got to go be by myself, but I don’t think anybody would say that. That’s my normal state. And we get into this in the talk. I am shy. Yeah, I do. So today specifically, I always describe things as, I don’t like walking through doors without windows. I don’t like not being able to see what’s on the other side. So my wife had to make a phone call for me to the vet today to get our cat into the vet. She’s got a little thing, like a little scratch or something, but I hate making unscheduled phone

Sara Muender:

Calls. Oh, me too. I don’t, I just don’t.

Zack Glaser:

Oh, oh my God. This is why I have a wife.

Sara Muender:

Yeah. I go years without a doctor’s appointment because I can’t make that call or I don’t want to make that call. My God.

Zack Glaser:

It’s just so much anxiety. It’s

Sara Muender:

The worst. It’s the worst.

Zack Glaser:

Yes.

Sara Muender:

That’s why, I mean, I love my job because I’m not required to make unscheduled phone calls. Every single call is scheduled.

Zack Glaser:

It’s

Sara Muender:

Amazing.

Zack Glaser:

I

Sara Muender:

Love that. And I try to teach our lobsters to do that too. A lot of them are introverts

Zack Glaser:

In Chi, and there’s an element, and again, we get into this, there’s an element that you want to, don’t want to be anything extroverted, introverted, or anything to your detriment.

Sara Muender:

Good point.

Zack Glaser:

You want to, so if there’s something that’s keeping you from being productive or keeping you from kind of existing in society or something like that, you may want to work on that. I don’t know. And I’m not a therapist, so I don’t know, but

Sara Muender:

I definitely need to work on that.

Zack Glaser:

I need to work on that too. That’s something that I definitely need to work on. Me and

Sara Muender:

You. Quarter three goals.

Zack Glaser:

Yes, make phone calls.

Sara Muender:

I’ll hold you accountable if you hold me accountable.

Zack Glaser:

I was helping my dad run his campaign for state representative years and years and years ago, and that was the absolute worst. I’m a practicing attorney at the time and practicing with my father and going door to door or manning the phone banks was hell to me. That is my special hell. Again, I’m shy. You wouldn’t think it because I’m on a podcast and I talk crap all

Sara Muender:

The time. You’re friendly, but there’s also not someone on the other side. There might be a co-host or an interviewee, but there,

Zack Glaser:

Well, and I’ve done this so many times and I get to push the record button. You do.

Sara Muender:

It’s not live.

Zack Glaser:

And it’s not live. So I’m curious about people out there in lawyers podcast land, because I don’t think that people, like you say you’re an outgoing introvert. I don’t think people would see themselves as one or the other a lot of times. I think much like everything else in life, this is shades and spectrum of things. I’d be curious how people classify themselves

Sara Muender:

Would too, how people see

Zack Glaser:

Themselves with these things.

Sara Muender:

I would too. I once interviewed a psychologist. She was like a child therapist actually. And we had a really interesting conversation, and this blew my mind and really changed my world, and it’s worth sharing real quick, but she said there are people who are internal processors and there are people who are external processors, meaning there are people who like to hash it out there face-to-face, jump on a phone call, let’s talk it through. And then there are people who are like me, and I imagine where we have to know what we’re getting into. We can’t, unscheduled conversations gives us anxiety, and then we have to go away and process and put our pieces together in our brain and then come back with a response.

Zack Glaser:

See, this is fun because I actually, I process by talking out loud. So in meetings, in our meetings, I’ll say so many times I’m saying, I’m just talking this through right now, but I also still feel like there’s a major element of me that does exactly what you’re saying. I do that in a safe space. I don’t have to have all my thoughts be internal. But yeah, I do want that to be in a safe space. And again, I guess that’s why I say I’m shy. I’m probably naturally an extrovert, but I’m pretty, I need to know what’s going on.

Sara Muender:

But you’re also seasoned, and I think that it also depends on what you’ve been through in life and what you’ve had to overcome. And I’m curious about what Heidi’s book says about that part of it. Because the more shit I go through in life, the more confidence it gives me to walk into any situation and just handle it.

Zack Glaser:

That’s a fascinating take on this because a lot of times if someone’s saying the things you’ve gone through, the things you’ve had to overcome, you think of that as the baggage, the things that are making us wince away from something. But you’re saying it, and I think that Heidi’s book gets into this in a little bit. You’re saying, well, shit, that didn’t break me, so how’s this going to break me

Sara Muender:

That I can make that call?

Zack Glaser:

Oh man, I have to pump myself up for crap like that. And it’s like, yeah, yeah, I just need a large pizza. Mean

Sara Muender:

Seriously. But you have to make decisions on the spot. What if they give you a good deal for Cinnabons or Brown or Wings? Yes.

Zack Glaser:

And meanwhile, here I am a seasoned attorney calling into a pizza place, talking to a high school kid probably, hopefully, I guess I don’t know. But talking to whoever’s working at the pizza place and I’m anxious

Sara Muender:

And it could have something to do with that. Do I have to make decision on the spot? Which decision fatigue? Hundred percent. What’s our capacity? I mean, there’s so many elements to this. We better stop talking and just let Heidi do the explaining.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, let’s get into the introverted stuff. But again, all y’all out there, I would be curious in the comments and all the socials and all the places, how do you categorize yourself in that kind of introverted, extroverted, or even disk and Enneagram? How do you see yourself?

Sara Muender:

Man, you are really stretching this wide. You just opened a whole new, okay, I’m going to gather myself because I have so many thoughts in that is for another podcast episode, personality

Zack Glaser:

Time. Tune in next time when Zack and Sara dig further into this topic. But for now, we’re just going to go into my conversation with Heidi.

Heidi Brown:

Hi, I’m Heidi. I’m a law professor, a public speaker, and the author of three wellbeing books for law students and lawyers. One is called the Introverted Lawyer, which is kind of ironic that I’m also a public speaker. And then I just recently totally reinvented myself into a travel memoirist and wrote my first travel memoir called The Map. I Draw. I’m happy to be here.

Zack Glaser:

Well, Heidi, thank you. Thank you for being here. We’re happy to have you. And I’m glad you pointed out that kind of the tension there of being an introvert and you’re kind of a prolific writer at this point. You’ve written a couple things. The introverted lawyer untangling fear and lawyering the flourishing lawyer. And now the map I draw, and one of the things that I actually take out of every one of those is that you’re, even as an introvert, you’re not really shy. You’re kind of putting yourself out there. And that is, I think as somebody, I’m not an introvert that I know of, but if somebody is and is listening to this and they’re thinking, man, I’m introverted. That would be a nice thing to be able to see on the other side of the fence of like, okay. Okay, so let’s talk about that first book, the Introverted Lawyer. How’d you come about just saying, I want to take this feeling, this stuff, these things that are in my brains, my brain, and put it into print, put it out there.

Heidi Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. So I started off my career in law school. I was very quiet. I was a quiet student, but I didn’t know I was an introvert. I didn’t know anything about introversion when I was in law school, but I had public speaking anxiety in law school. And then my first job out of law school was in the rough and tumble construction industry. So I was a litigator in a male dominated rough industry for literally 15 solid years. And I was not thriving as an introvert, let me tell you that. But it was because I kept trying to fake extroversion because well-meaning mentors would say, fake it till you make it. I was trying. But I also have a very robust blushing response. I blush when I get nervous, So You can’t fake anything when you’re an epic blusher like me. And So what brought me to writing that book, 15 years into my litigation career, I got the opportunity to start teaching law, teaching legal writing. And I walked into my first classroom in law school as a teacher, and I was scared. I was still like, oh my gosh, these students are going to think I’m a fraud. But I was a good legal writer and I wanted to teach that. But what taught me to write the book is that over that first year of teaching, I noticed that my top legal writing students were also my quietest students. They were the introverts,

And there were the students who would confide in me in office hours that they were afraid. They were afraid to get cold, called in class, they’re afraid to try out for moot court competition teams. That’s what prompted me to write the book because I thought, oh my goodness, I don’t want these students going through 15 years of feeling out of place like me. Let’s understand the science of it, the difference between introversion and extroversion, but also as you pointed out, the difference between introversion and shyness and social anxiety, which I can explain. You want me?

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, let’s actually dive into that because when I was reading the introverted lawyer, it was a key distinction for me. So yeah, if you don’t mind digging into that a little bit.

Heidi Brown:

Sure. Yeah. So we all kind of understand the difference between introverts and extroverts. Introverts process ideas and opinions and thoughts and words internally before we say them out loud. So it can seem like we’re slower to join conversations. But actually we go a little bit deeper. Not that extroverts don’t go deeply, but they do it externally. We do it, I do it internally. Introverts

And also the two personality types replenish energy differently. I think you said you’re not an introvert. You might like going to parties and networking events, and I can do that at a highly functioning level, and then I hit a wall and I need to be alone or I will lose my mind. So that’s just the difference between introverts and extroverts.

Zack Glaser:

And I think about the fact that in meetings all the time, I actually tell people, I’m just thinking out loud here. And that kind of as an example of, I think with my words that are at that time, and I’m okay with that. That’s just how I operate. But that’s not how an introvert would operate.

Heidi Brown:

No, we do it totally internally. There’s actually science that shows that, I don’t know how they figure this out, but introverts use a longer neurological pathway when they’re thinking about things than extroverts do. So extroverts are quicker to join, get those words out of their heads. Whereas introverts are processing, like I said, words, ideas, opinions, solutions to problems, really on a method. I can never say that word really methodically internally, but at some point we have to train ourselves to bring it outside so someone can hear our good deep thoughts.

Zack Glaser:

Well, so let’s kind of dig between the introverts and the shyness and the social anxiety, because I think that kind of comes up is not talking in a meeting, not being present or not putting things out there.

Heidi Brown:

And our American society tends to lump all those categories together, introversion, shy, socially anxious, aloof, quiet, wallflower, loner. But really introversion is just what I just described, is just processing things internally and needing to be alone to replenish energy. Shyness and social anxiety are a fear of judgment or a fear of criticism. So you be a completely confident introvert and not worry at all what people think of you and in that meeting when you’re the last person to speak. But if you’re a shy person or I grappled with extreme social anxiety and extreme public speaking anxiety for a long time. And so until I started researching and writing about this, that’s when you’re sitting in the meeting and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m the last person to speak. Everyone’s going to look at me. I start blushing. I think I keep editing myself into further silence that’s different.

That’s a fear, like I said, of judgment or criticism by your audience. And that can be reinforced or entrenched from childhood. I grew up in a really religious household, and my brother and I weren’t really given a lot of opportunities to express opinions that differed from my family. And so that sort of set us up a little bit for being worried about when we do express opinions, what people are going to think now, you can work through that and become a really amazing public speaker, even if you’re shy and have social anxiety, which I can talk about a little bit more if you want me to.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. Before we hit that specifically, one of the things that struck me, and I feel bad that I’ve never thought about it before because I think about this with A DHD and things like that, is the idea of introversion used and wielded appropriately is a superpower.

Heidi Brown:

It completely is. And it’s when introverts can realize that it’s a superpower and give themselves permission to sort of reject those well-meaning messages, like fake it till you make it say, no, I’m not going to fake extroversion. I’m actually going to embrace introversion. And then so when I wrote my introversion book, I read 26 books by other experts. I sold that to understand the strengths that introverts bring to every interpersonal dynamic. And there are things like active listening, like an introvert in a meeting can sort of cut through all the noise and chaos and focus on what each person has said and then synthesize it together. Super helpful in the legal profession, active, actively listening, like I said, thoughtful problem solving because you’re really vetting solutions to problems for a long time before you make a suggestion. The research shows that introverts have a tendency toward empathy and can really hear what the other person is saying and understand that from that person’s point of view, not that extroverts can’t, I never want to sort of pit the two personalities against each other, but introverts have a good sensitivity to nuance. They can sort of read through the read between the lines about what a client or a colleague or opposing counsel is saying to them. So Introverts bring just tremendous assets. We’re good writers usually because we like to write out our thoughts before expressing them aloud. There’s So many strengths that to me, it really is a superpower. And when introverts decide to actually step into the speaking arena or grab the microphone or hang onto the podium, watch out, because that’s when the magic happens. If they have something to say And

Say it, it’s going to be really impactful because introverts don’t just want to speak for the sake of speaking.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. So let’s talk about that because I think that there, I’m sure there are many, many, many introverts listening to this because I mean, that’s part of the population. It’s a significant part of the population, as you said in your book. So if I were an introvert, how can I kind of show up authentically as an introvert?

Heidi Brown:

This is what I had to really figure out for myself. How can I stand up for myself as an introvert, but not feel pressure to just jump into the fray when I’m not ready? So I had to do what I recommend is first sort of a reflection step physically and mentally and emotionally. So for me, I had physically, this kind of goes a little bit toward the shyness part, but anytime I was as an introvert and a shy person put on the spot in a meeting, I would immediately think about everything that was going to go wrong or that I wasn’t prepared to speak spontaneously or I’m not good at that. And

So I had to reflect on what my mental soundtrack was and also how that showed up physically for me. I mentioned the blushing, et cetera. Some people get hot and sweaty, but our bodies go into fight, flight or freeze response. And so the first steps are reflecting on what are you telling yourself mentally about your introversion? What’s happening to you physically when you’re telling yourself that negative stuff? And then how can we reframe that? And so for me, it was like rewriting my mental soundtrack. As an introvert, I’m totally prepared for this. I’m probably more prepared than a lot of the people I worked with who were so great on their feet, but really didn’t read the notes. So reframing mentally, I’m prepared for this. I know what I’m talking about. I care about this. I have the right to have a voice, and it doesn’t matter if it goes perfectly because my voice still matters. There’s that great quote, I forget who said it, but use your voice even if it shakes, use something important to say, even if your voice shakes a little

Zack Glaser:

Bit.

Heidi Brown:

And then physically, I had to immerse in studying what’s called somatic intelligence, and that’s understanding how our physical bodies interact with that mental soundtrack. I put myself in boxing lessons for that reason, because I would, in those lawyering moments or legal arenas, I would either hold my breath or hyperventilate. And that wasn’t conducive to my,

Zack Glaser:

Either way’s not good. Yeah, either way, it’s not going to help. No.

Heidi Brown:

So I mean, boxing isn’t for everyone, obviously, but there’s a lot of things we can do to get to know our physical selves,

And then when all those fight flight or freeze responses that are natural and set up to protect us, but don’t always help, we can recalibrate our physical frame. So I have to realize when my introversion is kicking in, I want to just escape the room. I have to be like, Nope, I’m going to stand or sit an athlete with my shoulders back and both feet on the floor opening up my spine so I can breathe, calm my breathing. I watched this awesome French Netflix series during the pandemic called the Furies. It’s actually about French female assassins, but they had this phrase called respire azi, which means breathe and choose. And so that’s what I do now. I’m like, okay, I know I got to interrupt these people, or I’m never going to get a chance to say my thoughts in this meeting. I’m going to breathe and then choose my moment and go for it. So those are just some suggestions on how introverts can really step into an arena. But you have to do sort of the mental and physical reflection piece first to get to know yourself a little bit more and then set up kind of new systems like athletes or performers do.

Zack Glaser:

The interesting thing to me with this is that, well, it spoke to me even as an extrovert because, and I think people will argue with me on this, I’m shy, and so I fight it. I get past it, and really looking at this, that’s kind of what I do. That’s kind of the process of like, okay, well, why do I feel this way? Why am I thinking this? What is it, like you said, put words to it. Let it know it’s there. And then I think more specifically with what you’re saying also is let it be there and recognize it. Yes,

Heidi Brown:

Absolutely. I have a thought on the reframing because exactly what you just said. When we’re feeling shy or we’re feeling anxious, that’s that fear of judgment or criticism. But once you kind like what you said, let it be, once you name it, you can start to peel back the layers of it for me. I’ll give you an example. I’m afraid to sometimes speak in faculty meetings. I graduated from law school 31 years ago. I was a lawyer 20 years, and I’ve been a law professor for some overlapping of the time I was practicing, but for 16 years, I should not be nervous to speak at a faculty meeting,

Zack Glaser:

Right, rationally. Yeah.

Heidi Brown:

Yes. So when you think about it though, okay, why am I afraid? Well, I’m afraid that they’re going to think I’m not as smart as they are, for instance, or that my face is red and I’m, oh, it’ll think I’m weak or I’m nervous, and I’m sure they don’t think any of this, but this is what my brain is telling me. But then you peel back the layers and you’re like, well, what am I really afraid of? And it takes us back to high school because it’s like we’re afraid of being rejected or excluded or kicked out of the club or being alone like, oh, everyone’s going to think I’m not as smart as they are, so they’re going to reject me professionally, et cetera. It’s like this baked in fear. We’ve had all our lives of being excluded. And so reframing, once we peel back all the layers and figure out that that’s what it is, we can work with that. Because look at what we’ve accomplished in our professional lives. Everybody who’s listening to this too, we swerve to be in the room. We deserved have a seat at the table. So what we’re telling ourselves is just kind of knee jerk normal stuff that we felt could be five years ago, 10 years ago. For me, it was literally like 35 years ago.

Then we can decide. I don’t need, that’s outdated nonsense. It’s 2025. Let’s rewrite the script.

Zack Glaser:

When you were saying that, I like to imagine what scenario could possibly come up in my head that gave me that feeling. What scenario 25 years ago would possibly make me go, no, I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Nothing. There’s no way. There’s just no way that that kind of past action or inaction or trauma or whatever is really should have the effect that we have. And that’s the rational side. So yes, I know that, but I think sitting in that, reflecting on it, and I really liked your physical reflection as well, of what is it making me do? And one of the things that you brought up that I thought was very cool was the okay, if you’re in a meeting or you’re talking and you catch one of those moments and it gets ahead of you and you think, you just say, I’m going to take a second. You’re going to see my face getting red. And that’s okay. You just grabbed a hold of the whole thing and now it’s yours. Now you control it. And to me, that would make my anxiety subside substantially.

Heidi Brown:

It’s so powerful. And when you mentioned the blushing and face turning red in one of those 26 books I read, there was one by Erica Hilliard, and she wrote a book called Living with Shyness and Social Anxiety. And it’s the only book I’ve ever read that reframed, blushing for me in a way that you just described. So she said in her book, and I laughed out loud when I read these words, she says, A blush is life coursing through you. It’s like life leaving little footprints in your skin or whatever. And so now when I blush, because it happens all, I can’t control it, I can’t prevent it. But now when it happens, I laugh. I grab onto it and I laugh and I say, oh, I’m alive. Yay me. And then I’d move on. It’s like that breathe and choose thing. I’m like, okay, I acknowledged it, but I’m going to choose to move past it and let it go. And the blush goes away in four or five minutes. Whereas before, because I was so stressed about it, my face would turn fire engine red for like an hour.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. Because then you’re blushing about blushing.

And that’s, but that’s tough to get out of. And I think that’s important here too, is that in the book specifically, you spend a good deal of time talking about each one of these seven steps that you have, because this is not surface level sort of thing. It’s not easy to do. I mean, if someone were to say, if they were just to take the fake it till you make it, and they were just to say, well reflect on it, that’s not going to help either. We have to actually do this, and it’s not easy, and it’s something that you get through, it seems inch by inch. Could you talk a little bit about your kind of journey doing that? I imagine even when you went into your first teaching gig, you were saying you were worried, okay, but then you decided to help people, and now you’re on a podcast and writing multiple books and teaching and no blushing. No, I

Heidi Brown:

Mean, I still blush. I still blush, but I’m okay with it,

Zack Glaser:

Right?

Heidi Brown:

Yeah. It’s been a journey, as you described. It’s been a whole process. And I just decided I was never an athlete in high school or college, but now at the age, I, now I consider myself an athlete, a boxer, because I just show up at the ring. But it wasn’t like I became a boxer overnight or I became a public speaker overnight. It was this process, and this process works for me, and I think it’s worked for a lot of my readers. It doesn’t work for everybody. But the way, if you commit to treating yourself like an athlete or a performer, they don’t become amazing overnight. They work at it. And so again, it’s giving yourself permission to spend some time getting to know yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I mean, I could go on and on about this. I know we don’t have hours, but it’s really thinking and taking out a piece of paper or taking out the notes app on your phone and typing what your yucky mental soundtrack is. So transcribing it so you can see the words which are not usually pleasant, and then making a conscious decision to delete that soundtrack and write a new one. And then practicing when you’re anticipating a public speaking event or a meeting or something that normally would kind of throw you off kilter practice, remind yourself, like I told you, my old soundtrack was the one about how I’m going to turn red and everyone’s going to think I’m Competent, Blah, blah. Now it’s, you’ve done the work. Everyone on this call does the work. So you’ve done the work. You know what you’re talking about. You deserve to be here and everybody will sound different. And then for me, it was figuring out physically what would start. Was it the blush that started, or was it I hunched my shoulders down? I’m trying to escape. And So then doing a physical inventory and then designing a recalibration. So for me, my heartbeat is always going to be out of control when I’m nervous, but I have to do that breathe and choose thing. Like, okay, my heart’s beating fast. I’m sweating, my face is turning red. What helps me do that, I recalibrate stand like an athlete or sit like an athlete where if the athlete model doesn’t work for everybody, think about your favorite performer and how they command a stage. And then I have to shift my shoulders back. It only takes like 12 seconds, but it’s huge. And then kind of also setting up a pre-game routine and a game day routine. If I have a big talk to do, or I’m particularly nervous about class, I have to teach or something, there’s two songs I always play. And then I do this power pose thing like the Amy Cuddy, Ted Talk about power poses. You can do a superhero pose with your hands on your hips or a board executive or the starfish pose, which is my favorite. I layer these things on top of each other. So I know when I’m stepping into the performance zone, I’ve done everything I can possibly do for it to go, well, it might not go perfectly. I might still blush out of control, forget a line or something, but I’ve set myself up to do the best I possibly can. And then you reflect on it afterwards and realize what worked and what didn’t, and then you make some changes for the next time. So that’s the process.

Zack Glaser:

So I love this pregame and game day action that had never really occurred to me. Even though I’ve been an athlete my whole life, I’ve had various different types of games and races and things like that, and I have warmup routines. I’ve always had warmup routines. I have the things that I do, and if that warmup routine doesn’t get done right, things might get a little weird or I had to get to where I was okay with it being a little different. And I tell my athletes that I coach to do a warmup routine because it puts you in the right head space. I love that action six of putting yourself in the right head space, but then also your seventh thing, which is look it over, reflect it’s reflective afterwards and

Heidi Brown:

Savor what it went well, and reflect on what you can tweak for next time.

Zack Glaser:

And I think that’s important because again, like you said, it’s doing it over and over. It’s little steps like weightlifting. You’re not going to lift massive. You’re not going to lift a car the first day. You step into CrossFit, they may ask you to

Heidi Brown:

Well, and by doing it over and over, you’re building a track record of successes where you realize, so the next time you get nervous or feel shy or feel anxious, you remember, this is why the savoring is important, and the reflection is important because you remember, oh, wait, I felt like this before. I did my routine. I changed my soundtrack. I recalibrated physically. Maybe I switched up the way that I have my presentation notes so I’m better able to access the content, the intellectual content. It worked. Then it’s going to work again today. So it’s building that track record and being really intentional about that and really mindful of and trusting yourself that, oh, wait, I did this before. I felt the same way. I felt this rapid heartbeat. I felt like some people, their mouth goes dry. Or for me, again, it’s the heating up of the skin. I felt this way before. This is what I did. Then it worked. Twila Tharp, the famous choreographer, has a great quote. I’m going to butcher it, but she said something like, I did it before. It was good. I’m going to do it again. And so it’s like trusting that pregame ritual and that game day attitude. Okay, I did it before. It was good. It was fine. I’m going to do it again. Here we go.

Zack Glaser:

Okay. So pivoting just a little bit, because I think out there also are extroverts who own firms or who are the associate attorney with junior attorneys who are introverts or they’re professors who have budding attorneys who are in their classroom. We, in order to unleash that superpower for ourselves, even of other people, how do they need to show up? How do they need to kind of adjust or Yeah, I guess adjust and interact with,

Heidi Brown:

Well, you’re talking to an introvert who always worked for extroverts who did not understand introversion. So I got a lot to say about This. First of all, introverts, in order to perform at our highest level, we need, most of us introverts need quiet. So for instance, I used to work in law firms where my extroverted bosses would want to see our doors open and lights on, and they would pop in, and I dreaded the pop in because I am a legal writer. That was my specialty. And I would be in a flow state for a brief, and then people would just be yelling in the hallway or barge into the office. I’m sorry, but I’m, that just deletes all of my flow.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, yeah.

Heidi Brown:

But when I would say that, they’d be like, no, I want to see your doors open. This is an open door office. Well, your introverts can’t function at a high level in that. It doesn’t mean they’re weak. It’s just the way that our brains function. We need quiet. So what I would suggest though, I mean, I’m being a little bit sarcastic here, but what I suggest is for offices and teams to talk about their strengths and their personality styles and their preferences, there’s all kinds of free, scientifically validated assessments that people can take. I’m a huge fan of the via, it’s called the Values and Action Inventory on Strengths. It’s via character.org. If I were running a team in the law firm, I would have everybody on my team do the Via, because A, again, it’s like science. It’s not just self-help kind of silly stuff. It’s really works, and it shows you so much about your top five signature strengths. They’re different for all of us, right? Sorry, I interrupted you. No,

Zack Glaser:

No, no. I was interrupting you. Just to say that we at Lawyerist, we use disc, and we’ve also done Enneagrams in order to, we are, I think, proponents of trying to meet people where they are.

Heidi Brown:

Absolutely.

Zack Glaser:

And yeah, it involves that communication, and I think you said or quoted, knowing Thyself.

Heidi Brown:

Knowing Thyself, which Socrates said, I joke with my students. I was mad at Socrates for a solid 20 years, but Socrates was for inventing the Socratic method that I let intimidate me in law school. But he was all about knowing thyself. And so yeah, using assessments like disc or the character one, the introversion extroversion continuum. There’s another one 16 Personalities. There’s a book by Erica Ariel Fox called Winning From Within that talks about our four inner aspects, and that’s how we all have one dominant aspect. That is how we function in teams and getting projects done. There’s warrior, there’s the thinker, there’s the dreamer and the lover. The lover is more on the emotional side, and I’m a warrior. I’m like, give me a to-do list and I’ll get that thing done. But everything we’re talking about is in a law firm or law office environment coming up with a shared vocabulary around strengths. If I had had the words to explain to my bosses back then about why my introversion was a superpower and not something holding me back, I think I could have better explained to them why when I’m writing, I need to hide.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. If you want the best work out of me.

Heidi Brown:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Zack Glaser:

Okay. So I think we’ve solved the world’s introversion, extroversion problems here. No, but really, I did enjoy the introverted lawyer book, and I have dug into the map. I draw, and it’s back there behind your head. It’s your foray into writing a memoir. And what got me in reading that, what struck me, because it came back to the introverted lawyer, was again, the you’re not shy. You’re not, you’re being open and honest. And it’s also an interesting look into, because think you’re, at least in the Rome area, which is where I’m at right now, you’re traveling with one of your friends who’s an extrovert.

Heidi Brown:

Yes.

Zack Glaser:

And to see that, I’m

Heidi Brown:

Nervous about her reading that chapter,

Zack Glaser:

But to see that juxtaposition was actually really good for me as an extrovert, because I think reading through the introverted lawyer, I didn’t always think this book is for me, because it has a lot of places that say, here’s how you can do things if you are a professor, if you are a lawyer, working with people. But it’s a lot about how somebody can work on themselves As Well. But the map I draw, at least that specific area, gave me a pretty good look at like, oh, this is what somebody’s thinking about while that’s going on. That was fascinating.

Heidi Brown:

Thank you. Well, this book has been a labor of love, and as you mentioned, it begins and ends in Rome. It’s 10 chapters begins and ends in Rome, and there’s eight other adventures in between. And in each chapter, I do something scary, and I don’t die, thankfully. But to your point, it taught me that, yes, I’m an introvert. Yes, I used to be very socially anxious, but travel, I tell my students, travel is one of my four wellbeing pillars. So they’re writing travel, boxing, and YouTube music, which is chapter five, by the way.

Zack Glaser:

I thought that’d be coming up,

Heidi Brown:

Travel has made me so much more confident in my work life, which I never realized. So that’s why I really wanted to write. I’ve been writing this book for five years, so it’s just so happy. It’s out in the world finally. And it’s very vulnerable because my personal life, and I couldn’t just stick it in a drawer. I couldn’t just be like, oh, I’ll just write this thing and never share it. Because I learned so much about myself as an introvert, about traveling with other people, traveling alone, doing the scary thing, asking for help sometimes asking the wrong person for help. So it’s just been a really incredible life experience writing about all these things that I’ve learned through the lens of travel and sort of healing a lot of past trauma, et cetera. I do talk a little bit about my life as a lawyer in there. But yeah, it’s been exciting and nerve wracking and scary and exhilarating all at the same time.

Zack Glaser:

That’s fantastic. Well, so okay. I imagine that you don’t feel like you are not cut out for this anymore, or as some lawyers or budding lawyers would feel like if they’re living in that Socratic method, what would you say? Just small little thing to somebody that does feel like they’re not cut out for this right now?

Heidi Brown:

Oh my gosh. Our profession needs you and I so wish I could go back and have a do-over knowing what I know now. And so what I would say is do these baby steps. Do the mental reflection. Reflect on your possibly negative mental soundtrack, and then give yourself permission to rip it up, tear it up, delete it, and write an accurate soundtrack of your abilities today. And then the same thing. Really try to embrace this concept of somatic intelligence. It Doesn’t mean you have to go take boxing lessons or run a marathon or start a yoga practice. It’s just paying attention as you move through the world about what’s happening in your physical bodies and how you react to either anticipating something stressful or stepping into something stressful. Once you’re armed with all that knowledge that know thy self Socratic

Call to action, it’s incredible. The transformation you can make pretty quickly. We said it’s a journey. It’s not an overnight quick fix. I’m the anti quick fix girl. But once you do the hard work of the reflection and understanding yourself, then it’s that pregame and game day structure. And that doesn’t take long at all. You can experiment with, figure out who your favorite athlete or performer is, and research what their game day ritual is, and then get inspiration from that and create your own. Also, reach out to me. I love helping people figure out what your game day routine is going to be, and I will share mine with anybody who wants to know what it is. It’s kind of cheesy, but I will tell you it works.

Zack Glaser:

Okay. Okay. Well, Heidi, I really appreciate that. I hope that, I know that people listening to this have gotten something out of that, and I know that myself, even as an extrovert, has learned a lot from your books in this talk. So I really appreciate you sharing with us. Thank you.

Heidi Brown:

Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity. I mean, I think if extroverts and introverts, like I said, come up with a shared vocabulary and transparently and openly talk about all these issues, we can help each other level up our lives, the fun in our lives and in our jobs.

Zack Glaser:

Right. I love that. I love that. Well, Heidi, once again, thank you very much.

Heidi Brown:

Thank you. This was really fun. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

Continue Reading