Cecilia Poullain: The Power of Speaking Up and Refusing to Shrink

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Cecilia Poullain discuss:

  • The intersection of personal transformation and professional identity
  • Navigating and overcoming fear through self-expression
  • The power of storytelling in reclaiming one’s voice
  • Shifting from traditional career paths to more authentic, purpose-driven lives

Key Takeaways:

  • To overcome fear of public speaking or visibility, engage in practices like vocal training or performance-based activities that reconnect you with your physical voice and sense of self-expression.
  • Before pursuing a major career opportunity, reflect deeply on whether the role aligns with your true values and identity, rather than simply accepting it based on prestige or external validation.
  • Avoid falling into perfectionism by giving yourself permission to make mistakes, take small experimental steps, and speak up even when your contribution feels imperfect or incomplete.
  • Create intentional professional communities where you can actively contribute, connect with aligned individuals, and develop visibility, rather than waiting passively for recognition or advancement.

“ A real destroyer of confidence is perfectionism.” —  Cecilia Poullain

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Episode References: 

Rebel Ideas by Matthew Syed: https://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Ideas-Power-Diverse-Thinking/dp/1473613949

About Cecilia Poullain: Cecilia Poullain is a certified executive coach and former finance lawyer who helps women in law make partner and lead with confidence. Qualified in Australia, the UK, and France, she brings decades of legal experience to her work coaching female lawyers on the path to partnership.

Cecilia supports women in building confidence, navigating firm politics, and developing a strong client base to succeed at the highest levels. Through her 1:1 coaching, Pathway to Partnership program, and Firm Women breakfasts in Paris, she empowers women lawyers to rise, lead, and drive change in the legal profession.

Connect with Cecilia Poullain:  

Website: https://www.ceciliapoullain.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceciliapoullain

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: [email protected]

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steve Fretzin  [00:04]

Hey, be that lawyer, fans, I want to talk to you a little bit about my new book. Be that lawyer, 101 top Rainmaker, secrets to growing a successful law practice. My good friend Rob Hanna, he shares about this book, a practical master class for any attorney serious about building a thriving practice. If you’re a growth minded lawyer, this is the blueprint you didn’t know you needed. Check it out on Amazon, everybody and be that lawyer.

 

Narrator  [00:33]

You’re listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.

 

Steve Fretzin  [00:54]

Hey everybody, welcome back to the be that lawyer podcast. I am Steve Fretzin, your host, and we are rocking and rolling over 500 episodes now. I’ve been doing this for just over five years, putting two shows a week in front of you, on YouTube, on your podcast channels, all that you know, wherever you’re listening, Apple Spotify, and by the way, we also have video clips up on above the law. So if you’re already checking out that website, make sure you hit their podcast section. Go in and check out some of the video clips that we have. It also will take you to the podcast directly. So that is my opening for that. I’ve got Cecilia waiting in the wings. How are you? My friend?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [01:31]

Thank you. I’m thrilled to be here. Thrilled to be talking to you.

 

Steve Fretzin  [01:34]

Awesome. I’m well, I’m excited as well. I know we’re going to get into a lot of good things today, and one of the things we love to do on this show, and start off with is our quote of the show. Now this one has been mentioned on the show, but it is in the top five best quotes of the show, and we’ve done so many that it’s important to kind of keep bringing it back. So here we go. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. And the late great Nelson Mandela with that quote, and I just absolutely love that quote. So A, welcome to the show. And B, tell us a little bit about why you love that quote so much.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [02:12]

I think that that’s a great question. I think it’s because it’s easy to be afraid and it’s easy to keep ourselves small, but it’s actually hard to say, well, I’m going to put myself out there. I’m going to do the hard stuff, I’m going to do stuff that’s difficult, and I’m going to just see how far I can go. It means stepping out of your comfort zone. I mean, I did. I did a ton of like, coaching and stuff. And what that really taught me was how, if you can just imagine what the future is, step into that future, just you can achieve incredible things. That’s scary.

 

Steve Fretzin  [02:50]

Yeah, it is. It is. We don’t know what our real potential is, and we don’t always test it, and I think when we do, we recognize how much more we can be, and that could be a lawyer that doesn’t think he or she is a rainmaker. Could be a rainmaker, right? It could be someone who you know wants to be an entrepreneur and doesn’t realize you know that, and it’s hard. No one’s going to argue that. It’s hard. It’s you just don’t understand what your potential is. And I think you and I as coaches have a great insight, not only on our potential, but also on the people we work with, and seeing what their true potential is, and that it’s scary for them. It’s a little scary for us sometimes, but then when it’s released and harnessed, I mean, it’s like the whole world changes and opens up. It’s just beautiful,

 

Cecilia Poullain  [03:34]

Yeah, and it’s not, I mean, it’s not that far away. You know, I think you and I know that it doesn’t often take very much, but it just takes a bit of a change in mindset and boom, you know, things start to happen. Yeah, so exciting.

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:50]

Sometimes like a snowball rolling down a hill. Everybody we are listening to Cecilia Poullain. Cecilia Poullain sasu, you are so interesting. I mean, on a number of levels, but just an Australian living in Paris, having worked in the UK and finance and law, and I don’t want to give too much of your background. I don’t want to take away your your steam, but give us a little background on how you came to be, leading into working with women, on on their individual personal growth.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [04:18]

Yeah, sure. So I qualified as the lawyer in Australia. Worked in the UK, qualified as lawyer in the UK, and then I moved to France. My husband is French, as you can tell from my surname. And then I qualified as a as a French aboga French lawyer. I worked as a lawyer in various law firms, asset managers, for 20 odd years, then I actually switched over into finance, and I was structuring investment funds. And at the same time, I was doing a lot of stuff outside work. I’ve always been really interested in self development, so I myself did a lot of, you know, therapy, group therapy. I became a certified coach, certified mediator. Yeah, I was doing a lot of singing. I was doing a lot of other stuff. And it just gradually became more and more clear that I needed to move from where I was working in an asset manager to coaching and to doing a lot of creative stuff as well. So it was a long, slow movement, and initially I was coaching women in law and finance, and then I’ve just becoming more and more specialized in women lawyers around around partnership. So what it takes to become a partner and how to thrive when you actually become a partner?

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:36]

Well, so if you’re one of the things that you’re working on with women and is specialization and the importance of niching down and owning a space. You’re you’re taking your own medicine.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [05:46]

Yeah. And I think what I’ve learned in terms of becoming, you know, becoming a specialist is something that I apply every day with my clients. Absolutely.

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:53]

It took a client saying to me, because I hadn’t pushed all my chips into legal yet, and he said to me, you know, you’re talking to me about specializing. Why haven’t you done it? And I was like, because I’m a hypocrite. That’s why I said, I think you’re right. I’m ready. You know, it was about 80% of my business was lawyers and law firms, and I hadn’t pushed the chips in and, you know, and I think I was loathing the idea that I had to change my name from sales results, Inc, which is very scary name, to lawyers, sales results, to frets and Inc, and now be that lawyer and so. But I think it’s one of those things that you worry that you’re not going to get the business that you had because you’re a specialist now. And is that, is that something people should be concerned about, or is that, is that just, is that just phony baloney?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [06:36]

Do you mean for lawyers?

 

Steve Fretzin  [06:37]

Yeah, for lawyers like that, they should niche down like are they? Are they really going to lose out on a lot of business by taking that step?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [06:44]

No, is the short answer. I mean, well, as in everything, I think there’s nuance around it. It depends. If you’re like a generalist, and that’s really what your niche is, then that’s fine if you’re sort of a general practice lawyer. But I think that the sort of women that I’m working with, they tend to be in the bigger law firms, and they tend to want to do this and this and this and this and this and this. They’re wanting to do too much. They’re wanting to focus on too many different types of clients, and it means that it’s just exhausting them. I’m working with someone at the moment, and she was talking about writing a book, she’s talking about running a podcast. She’s talking about writing a whole lot of articles, running events, create going to these different conferences. And I was just listening, listing it down to her all the different things she was wanting to do. And she said, yeah, I get it.

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:40]

You don’t even have to coach me. I get it too much, too much. From my perspective, the niching down, I think you think about like, all right, if I do this, is there a market for it? Are there a lot of people that need this? Number two, is it an area of practice that I enjoy? You don’t want to niche down into something you’re miserable in? And then lastly, is it something that is highly profitable, right? So you’re niching down into something where you can’t make any money. That’s probably not a good dice. I think if you have those three elements, giving up an area of practice, maybe you’re sending it out to people who can reciprocate and send you the work they don’t do, right? So if I give up on residential real estate, but I’m referring those attorneys, and then they refer me back the estate planning and things that I’ve decided to focus on. You know, again, there’s, there’s ways to maneuver that I think you and I would advise on. So let’s talk so.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [08:31]

There’s sort of different ways you can do it too. Because what you can do is you can go up a little bit and say, well, in fact, everything I do you can is under, a single umbrella. Or the other thing you can do is to say, well, I want to be known for this, but I’m actually still going to do a whole lot of other stuff, because it makes sense for me to do the other stuff. So yeah, there’s different ways of meetings.

 

Steve Fretzin  [08:54]

Yes, yeah, thank you for clarifying that. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, because it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything to be a specialist. I think you can specialize and still, still, do you know, I could be a specialist in personal injury for truck accidents. Doesn’t mean I have to turn away, you know, the dog bite, or anything else that comes my way that I’ve done in the past. So you’re working with women, and I’d love for you to share your take on how the Marketplace, the world has changed for women, say, in the last five or 10 years. Is it the same? Is it different? And what are the things you’ve seen?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [09:30]

I’m actually I was sitting this afternoon working on some figures for an asset manager about how many women are there in asset management. It’s a different thing than law, but it was just interesting to see that the figures are actually slowly, slowly changing, that you’re gradually getting what you’ve got in France. You’ve actually got ratios now. You’ve got quotas for boards and executive committees for the number of women. And I think that because you’ve got the ratios, the numbers are changing. So they are gradually. More and more women. The other thing I’m seeing is a change in the way that younger women see the world, that they’re much more prepared to be out there. They’re much more prepared to set boundaries, to say, this is what I want to do. This is what I don’t want to do. I’d love to say that I feel as though women are being listened to more. I did. I did a survey maybe two, three years ago. It was just a very informal survey of 2030, women in in law and finance in the US, in France and the UK. And it was actually about public speaking. And about 80% of the women spontaneously said to me, I am so sick of being interrupted. And I have a feeling that. And I’ve got clients who say to me, I am so sick of not being listened to. People just don’t listen to me. And then at the same time, what I hear is women who say, Well, when I get to a certain level of seniority, then people start to listen. So once I’ve proved myself, then people start to listen. So it’s sort of, you know, it’s hard to make big generalizations.

 

Steve Fretzin  [11:09]

So everything you’re saying sounds, you know, like a problem, a big problem. And what are the things that women should then be thinking about and angling towards to be heard. And again, it’s not fair that they’re not feeling heard, and that’s an issue. But if they want to be heard, and they want to increase the odds that they’re going to have a shot at the bigger deals, at the promotion, at the, you know, equity, whatever it might be, what are the things that you’re working with them on to make partner, or to grow a book, or to like, what are the things they’re the problems they’re having, and then what are you working with them on every day?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [11:44]

One of the biggest things I work with women on is actually just speaking, you know, just asking. I mean, I don’t know if you see this with your clients, Steve, but one of the things, it just blows my mind. But there is still women who are, you know, eight, 910, years qualified, and they’re terrified of speaking up in public. And I hear partners who say to me, yeah, the women aren’t speaking. They’re not speaking, and they’re not asking. They’re not saying to people, yeah, I’d really love to be a partner. They’re not saying to people, okay, can we talk about what the what I need to be working on? What’s my progress? There are too many women who are sitting in their room saying to themselves, I want to be the best lawyer I can be thinking that the best lawyer that they can be is just somebody who is sitting there writing the contract from, you know, eight in the morning until whatever that time they go home at night, maybe with a break for lunch, yeah, and just racking up the billable hours and that that’s going to be enough, and it’s just so, so not enough.

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:55]

 Yeah, so, I mean, something that I’m obviously being sought out for now internationally has been I’ll just tell you. I mean, the number of women that were engaging me and working with me going back even 567, years was probably 10% of my clientele. It’s now sitting between 40 and 50% of my clientele. So that tells me a lot about where women are now, and what they’re thinking about building their books of business, having a seat at the table, having the power to speak up, and knowing that building a book of business and having, you know, being talked about at the firm as as someone who’s contributing, is leading to getting that voice heard and eventually being a leader, you know, running the firm and driving A practice area. So, I mean, I’m not just here to push business development. There’s other things that I think drive up confidence. What would you say are some of those?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [13:49]

Confidence I think is one of the things I think that is a real destroyer of confidence is perfectionism. And I think that, I don’t know if you see this with your clients, but it’s a huge, huge problem. And I think that a lot of women lawyers are, but they’re probably, I mean, lawyers generally, I think can be relatively anxious people, because that’s probably what makes them good lawyers. And when you get into a law firm where there is such a high level of excellence that’s expected, it can be very, very easy to get into a sort of perfectionist cycle. And what I see with my clients is what they’re doing is they’re saying, Well, I have to get it all right otherwise. And they go into this black and white thinking, if I make a mistake, if I don’t get it right, then I’m going to be out. You know, it’s going to be the end. And as a result, I mean, when I was talking about they’re not speaking in meetings, well, what’s happening is that they’re saying, Well, if I speak in a meeting and I say something wrong, you know that’s going to be the end. Instead of saying, well, it’s okay to make mistakes. You have to practice. It’s all about how do you practice these? Skills. Take little steps. And it’s not going to be perfect. You’re not going to be speaking in the meeting in the same way as the senior partner, because he or she’s been doing this for, you know, 3040, years. You have to start where you are and just say, Okay, I’m going to practice and I’m going to do little things, little take little steps. And in a way, I mean, I know when I was working in a law firm, I was working in an American law firm in in Paris, and I know that feeling of sitting in the meeting and thinking, I’m going to say, I don’t know what to say, I’m going to say something really stupid, and you just feel horrific. But it’s a matter of just taking the step off the cliff, and you just have to take the step off the cliff. Yeah, and yes, you might pull that on your face, but you have to do it.

 

Steve Fretzin  [15:48]

With proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io when they want rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] today, hey everybody. It’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you, and let’s make this your breakout year. Do you sometimes help craft language for the clients you work for, to help them speak up, or to help them get the work. Because sometimes it’s like, with me, it’s having a process to share, like, giving lawyers a process of how to do something, but then sometimes we also have to add in some language. So like, let’s say they’re making an ask for from a client for business that’s highly uncomfortable, right? In some like, and I’m talking with lawyers in Israel and other countries where it’s like, nobody does that. It’s like, unacceptable, but I will provide them language like something along the lines of, you know, listen, this is highly uncomfortable for me to even bring up to you, Cecilia, because we’ve been working together so long, and I don’t want to do anything to disrupt our relationship. However, I know you’ve told me on so many occasions how great I’m doing for you as a lawyer, and I know there’s probably other great people like you that I should be talking to. Would you even be open to having that conversation and watch as the client, like breaks down the door to try to help the lawyer? And it’s like without that language, it can become a very scary thing of making an ask, but if you have proper language like it changes things. So is there anything that you do with with the women you work with to help them maybe begin to engage in a conversation where they want something or want to add in their two cents?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [17:54]

I love that process that you described, Steve. I really like that. Thank you. I do it a different way. I do a lot of role play, and I get them to do things like say, okay, you’ve got a sales conversation coming up with a client. You’ve got something to ask them. How would you say it if it was incredibly aggressive? And I get them to say it in a way that’s incredibly aggressive. And often what they say is like, well, you can say that. You know, that’s perfectly fine to say that well. And then I’ll play with different ways of saying it. And I’d say, how would you say it if you were incredibly submissive, or how would you say if you were really sad, or if you were just, you know, so excited. And then they start to play around with different ways of saying things until they find a way that actually works for them. And sometimes, I mean, what’s interesting is sometimes they don’t actually even need to say anything. They just do it with their body language. You know, they just do a little something with their body language. And that’s, that’s, that’s all that’s needed in the situation so.

 

Steve Fretzin  [18:56]

Well, it’s just so important that, you know, the board you said, was practice. I love that. And in role playing, and it’s just, it’s not done in court, it’s done, right? We practice, you would know, right? You practice, and you get ready for the jury, and you talking in front of a mirror, and you’re out there practicing what you’re going to say and do and all that. And then in some areas, like elevating to, you know, ask for partnership or identity. I had someone the other day. This is not her fault. This is the culture of a terrible firm that she’s aligned with, where she doesn’t know who to talk to, she doesn’t know how to bring it up, like she wants to know, like, where do I go from here? Am I just going to be a lowly associate for the rest of my life here? Or is there an opportunity for growth, and there’s no one to talk to, and she doesn’t even know how to bring it up if there was. And these are the kinds of things that really concern me with someone, either in a bad culture or just just again, you know, how do you make that courageous move? And I think that’s what you’re suggesting, is sometimes you have to just practice it and role play it and get it comfortable.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [19:56]

Yeah, and I see things like partners who are there. Saying, Oh, you need to be speaking up more. But what they’re actually doing is, then they’re taking the limelight in the meeting. And so there’s this sort of manipulation thing going on about, I want you to be speaking up, but I’m actually not going to let you and, yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [20:19]

But I mean, I mean, I will say this that, you know, the number of women in law school right now and graduating from law school is higher than men in the US. There’s more women in law firms than ever before. There’s more women in leadership roles. And that needs to continue. And I’m definitely seeing, as I mentioned, that uptick in women that want and identify that business development is a path. It’s maybe not. It’s not the only path, but is it a very good path to be seen as a leader, to be seen as a contributor and to get a voice heard. Because if you have a million dollar book at any firm, you know, big and small, you’re going to have more say than if you don’t have any book and you’re just taking orders from from everybody. So how do women who are too perfect and have that perfectionist sort of mindset, what are? What’s another thing that they can do outside of practice that can help get them to do good, not be perfect, to do well, proper English.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [21:14]

To do well. Well, in the client development section area, it’s a lot about just building community. So I think that’s where you were talking about niching. I think that’s where niching comes in. Is working out who actually is your community, or who are your communities, and who do you want to be in that community? And it’s going from a lot of women lawyers, I see a very passive they expect things to happen. And so it’s from being very passive to actually being very proactive and thinking about, okay, so which of the communities I belong to? I belong to my team, I belong to my practice area, which might be across different offices. I belong to my firm. I belong to my the office here I belong to. It might be investment fund lawyers in Paris. It might be, I’ve got a client who, she’s Lebanese, working in Paris, and she’s working with people who are in the Middle East and North Africa who are Lebanese. And so she’s got a group of, like, 100 business leaders who are Lebanese. I mean, what a fabulous niche you’re in the Middle East and in Northern Africa. And so it’s thinking about, who are those different communities? How can you be being the one that brings people together, and what value can you be bringing to those communities. So thinking about, for example, not going to the conference where all the lawyers are, but going to the conference where, you know, your people are hanging out, where you you’ve got all the aeronautical people who who are hanging out, or, you know, whatever it might be, so it’s.

 

Steve Fretzin  [22:57]

Well, and sometimes we think about niche being just a practice area, and you’re suggesting that not only are there different communities that you’re you know that you belong to, but also, you know, let’s say that I do a lot of work with personal injury attorneys and like, let’s say that’s a focus of mine. There’s nothing wrong with then specializing in personal injury, and there’s a lot of companies that do that, or other practice areas, and we’re just working with solos like you have all these different options as a lawyer to pick out different communities that could be, you know, helpful then, you know, you could do great work for and build up that being known in an industry versus just a practice area could be another whole segment.

 

Cecilia Poullain  [23:36]

Yeah, and it’s not only about client development, but it’s also about, I mean, I see women, as I said before, who are just sitting at their desks, doing the work, and they’re not even like thinking about, well, I’m part of a team. What am I bringing to this team? How am I making this team work better together? How am I reaching out to partners? How am I reaching out to people, just the people around me, what am I bringing to those communities that mean that the community is going to work better together? Yeah? So it’s yeah, it’s.

 

Steve Fretzin  [24:11]

Yeah, and it’s I actually loved what you said, and then finish up on it. But you know, I really feel strongly that one of the greatest ways for a lawyer to be successful is to figure out everything you just said with niche and with communities and all that, but then you shared that the importance of being a giver and being someone that connects and being someone that helps, and that’s, by the way, that takes time, energy, and it’s hard. However, it’s like any skill, once you develop it like I’m sitting in a networking group, and everyone goes around and says what they do. I’ve got four referrals, you know, in the five to 10 minutes that we just spent hearing what people do, that’s building a network, but it’s also having a mindset that allows to give and to be helpful and useful. And I don’t know that people are treating that as a skill versus something that may happen haphazardly, which I think is a misstep?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [25:00]

Yeah, exactly. It all fits together, really. And it’s all like, who are you? Who, as you said before, what do you love to do? How can you be serving those people? How can you be giving a ton of value to those people? And then you start to work with more and more of those people. So then you understand their problems. And so then, because you understand your problems, then you get to be a better lawyer, because you really understand, you know, on the ground, what these people are worried about, and then that means that you’re able to give better value. And then then the whole thing, you know, it’s this great feedback loop.

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:35]

Yeah. I mean, I can’t think of a better place to sort of end our conversation on that note. I mean, that is just wonderful, and it’s so in line. I mean, whether you’re a man or woman, or anything in between, there’s opportunities you just need to, you know, become a student of the game, of what Cecilia and I are talking about, reading books, listening to podcasts like this. You know, anything and everything that you can do to start taking in. We talk. We’re not going to get into this because we don’t have time. But like peer advisory groups, women’s groups, things where you can be a part and learn from others, mentorship, and there’s just so many different things that can help you become stronger. So let’s wrap it up with our game changing book, which is Rebel ideas by Matthew Syed, yeah, tell us a little bit beyond and know about rebel ideas. What do I want to know? I want you to give us a 32nd understanding of what that book is all about. Why is it your game changing book?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [26:27]

Because it’s it doesn’t just talk about what Matthew side is really saying is that it’s not good enough to just put in a whole lot of different people from different backgrounds and hope that it’s going to work. What you need to do in order to have cognitive diversity is to get groups that coming from different backgrounds, different genders, different ages, whatever it might be, and you have to work out how those people can actually express themselves and how decisions are made within those groups. So, you know, it’s cognitive diversity, and I think it’s just, you know, I see so much of just throwing we’ve got to have more women, we’ve got to have more black people. We’ve got to have more whatever. We’ve got to have more old people. Got to have more young people. And it’s not about that. It’s about getting the people in the room and then working out how they actually make decisions and how they interact, how they listen to each other, how they Yeah, it’s getting the real juice out of that group of people. So yeah, that’s why I like it.

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:29]

And you know, who would love this conversation too is Jim Rogers, who’s been on the show a few times, but he’s my dei expert, and was on a maybe a few months ago, but he really sets the record straight from his perspective on what how he feels, the benefit and value is of people getting together and what they should be focusing on. Let’s take a moment and thank our wonderful sponsors. Of course, we have pimcon coming up for those pi folks that want to have a first class experience out in Arizona in October. We’ve got the law her podcast with Sonya Palmer, and that’s fantastic. Now, right up your alley, Cecilia, in fact, maybe I’ll make an inroad for you with her to talk on her show. And then lastly, I just want to mention the be that lawyer program. If anyone is feeling the current state of the world is not benefiting them, I don’t know who that could be, maybe everybody, except one person and you want to take matters into your own hands, whether it’s building a book of business or just having a chat with me to learn about where your potential openings are. I’m happy to do that. And Cecilia, to that end, you’re working with women. And can you just give a moment about what you do, how you do it, and how do people contact you?

 

Cecilia Poullain  [28:37]

Sure. So I do three things, really. I’m running breakfasts in Paris. So if you happen to be an English speaking woman lawyer in Paris, even if you’re passing through, give me a shout and you can come to a breakfast. They’re really intimate, and it’s a great place for women just to talk about what their experience is as being a woman in law firm, I’m running group programs, which are a group program, which is called pathway to partnership, where we look at getting clear on why you want to become a partner. We look at building your confidence, and then we look at client development, and then I’m doing one to one coaching, where we talk about all of that and more and whatever it is that you need. Yeah, the easiest way to contact me is just through LinkedIn. So Cecilia Pula on LinkedIn.

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:22]

Yeah, and that’s a French accent, everybody. So it’s, it’s P, o, u, l, l, a, I n, so just f y, I on that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been wonderful. And everything that we discussed today, I think, is super helpful to, you know, to my audience, in particular the women that listen and helping to inspire them and understand like there’s a brighter future. It just should keep getting better. I think it is, but I think it should all things are pointing towards. Things are getting better. So thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Steve. It’s been great. Yes, and thank you everybody for hanging out with Cecilia and I for last half an hour on be that lawyer. This show is here to help you be confident, organized and become that. Old Rainmaker, you’ve always wanted to be thanks everybody. Take care, be safe, be well. We will talk again soon.

 

Narrator  [30:09]

Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal, business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.