This is my fourth year in review. You can view my past year in reviews here: 2019, 2020 and 2021.
My Lessons of the Year
1. If I take care of myself, my best work will follow.
I entered the working world listening to war stories of how hard successful people worked to get where they wanted to be. I used to believe that this level of suffering was a precondition for success.
Because I measured my productivity by time spent, I believed that I needed to work to unhealthy levels to feel satisfied with my work performance.
This mentality became problematic when sales slowed down between June 2022 and August 2022 for the first time in four years. I became trapped in a state of loss avoidance; my working time was driven by making defensive decisions to manage my anxiety, rather than building a business from a place of confidence. I attempted to offset my stress by working more hours to the detriment of my personal life. During this wobble, I began to water down my vision for TCLA and question the value of growth.
The second half of 2022 taught me that I do my best work when I am prioritising my physical and mental health. Therapy, sleep, intense exercise and mindfulness are not add ons ‘when I have the time’, they are fundamental to my wellbeing and my high working performance, even more so when I am feeling the pressure.
I now measure my productivity by the quality of my time spent, which accounts for the fact that high leverage work (i.e. work that only I can do) requires thinking time and rest. Intensive sessions of deep work on the most important goal is a better metric for success than many hours of working to feel like I am a success.
When I prioritise my health, my anxiety falls. I feel better, so I think bigger. I am more focused, more ambitious in my vision and more confident in my abilities.
2. Thoughts are just thoughts. Sometimes, they are useful. Sometimes, they are wrong. The danger is to allow them to dictate your decisions before you have tried.
Meditation taught me that thoughts come and go, whether I like it or not. This is the human condition.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing your thoughts to be true. But they are often wrong. Our thoughts struggle when faced with uncertainty, fear, or a decision to step away from the comfort of a well-trodden path. They overestimate future risk and underprice the upside of conquering something hard.
I know this because I spent my early life avoiding situations because of fears I developed at a young age. I believed my thoughts, which clouded my perception of what I believed was possible.
These self-limiting beliefs were so ingrained that my default was to turn down opportunities because I had already decided what I was and was not capable of, before I had even tried. I avoided reaching out to law firms, running large in person events, speaking engagements and putting myself in front of a camera. I let the fear of not being perfect stop me from trying.
Thanks to therapy, I saw how the shame I was carrying over my insecurities prevented me from stepping outside of my comfort zone. This helped me to work on my inner journey of feeling ‘enough’ as I am. It helped me to show up as me, rather than chasing a desire to be someone I am not. When this clicked, it was powerful; I know there are always going to be challenges, but I also know whatever happens, I will be okay if I stay true to myself.
It was this journey that led me to re-approach law firms in November 2022. I dropped my expectations and showed up as myself. After having calls with six of the biggest law firms and helping American Express to place three of their five interns, I realised how wrong I was about my confidence in what we could achieve.
3. Surrounding yourself with people leading a different life expands your definition of ‘possible’.
When planning for the future, we are constrained by the options we have previously taken or the journeys we have been exposed to through the people we know. This can give a limited sense of what is possible, particularly if the people around us are operating on the same life trajectory.
In the first half of this year, I joined a coaching programme, which I later re-joined as a mentor in the second half of the year. I can’t understate the impact this has had on my ambition, confidence and motivation. Being surrounded by people who live a very different life taught me that I can achieve more than I believed I was capable of. It also showed me that there are many paths to success.
I saw the power of shared experience in our community last year. One of our biggest wins was launching the ‘Junior Lawyers’ Community’. Following interviews with incoming trainee solicitors, we launched a free, private community for incoming and junior lawyers to connect, which now has almost 400 members.
In addition to investing in this community in 2023, we will be launching our own cohort-based programme and a regular schedule of in-person meet ups for all community members. The hope is to bring aspiring lawyers and junior lawyers together to support lasting friendships for those entering a career in law.
Law can be exceptionally tough, but the journey doesn’t have to be isolating. I can’t wait to meet as many of you as I can in person.
4. Speak the truth.
I used to let life happen to me. I was ‘fine either way’, so I went along with the decision that caused the least conflict. I had been so used to burying my opinions that I convinced myself that I didn’t really have one.
Last year, I internalised the idea that it’s okay to ask for what you want. It doesn’t matter if it’s awkward, uncomfortable or involves disagreement. It’s important to speak your truth, to pursue what you care about and to disagree when you don’t agree.
This doesn’t mean the answer will always be ‘yes’ or the feedback will be well received, but I continue to be surprised by how often it is. And even if it isn’t, it’s worth it for the ability to live a life that is aligned with speaking up for what matters to you.
This has influenced the way I manage the team at TCLA. Managing people is a hard skill to develop because people are very different. This is amplified as a remote team without the benefit of seeing each other every day.
This has been a huge learning process for me, and I have made many mistakes along the way. Not wanting to disappoint anyone led me to fail to communicate clear expectations and speak up when I was unhappy with something. This is a bad way to manage people because a good manager is willing to have tough conversations precisely because they care about the success of the person they are managing.
One of the biggest changes I made last year was to begin measuring my output by the output of the team. I am willing to have tough conversations because I know this is a core part of caring about the people who work with me.
5. You can’t make more time.
Last year, I found myself frequently coming back to the inevitability of death. I find this to be an important truth that we don’t think about enough.
As Lawrence Yeo puts it:
“Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us, yet we live life as if a fresh day awaits us each morning.”
Thinking about the brevity of life has helped me to move away from deferred life plans and imaginary timelines to ‘just doing the thing’ now. It can also shortcut my decision making. When I have to do something scary, I often ask myself: if I were to look back on my life, would I regret making this decision?
The scarcity of time is why I am trying to build a business where we optimise for day-to-day joy. This doesn’t mean the work is always fun, but we care about impact, excellence, kindness and supporting one another. My view is that if I am going to dedicate a substantial part of my life to a cause, it must give me and the people around me day-to-day meaning, whether or not we make it to the destination.
This is why my biggest source of pride at TCLA is the team. I feel lucky to work with people who care deeply about impacting the lives of others. They are incredible at what they do and a joy to work with.
6. The importance of a clear vision.
I used to say that I wanted TCLA to be an ‘online law school’. It sounded ambitious and exciting, but this vision was not aligned with what I cared about.
One of the best experiences I had last year was participating in the Centre for Entrepreneurs programme, partly because I had to learn to communicate what we do to people outside the legal industry. I had to grapple with why I was really building a business and what I wanted to achieve in the long-term.
For me, TCLA is a vehicle to do something that deeply matters to me and impacts many people around the world. I feel lucky that I have been able to come across good ideas and develop skills that have changed the trajectory of my life, especially when I didn’t have access to these when I was first starting out. This ranges from learning how to write clearly to having the confidence to know your worth.
I want to share this with students and graduates across the world who are entering their career journeys, particularly those who don’t have easy access to this kind of information, whether this is because of their background, location or circumstances. This is particularly powerful when it is shared in the context of a community.
Bring on 2023.