The Triple C Project

If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Five Things I Wish I'd Done Before Becoming A Father In BigLaw, And You Should Do Before Making a Life Change

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 115

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It was my son's birthday week. I also delivered a webinar to Dad's working in law. Both of these events got me reflecting on becoming a father for the first time and the unexpected shifts that occurred, changing the course of my career and life.

In this week's episode, I share five things I wish I'd known and worked on before my son was born. These things would have helped me navigate the shifts with a little less angst and uncertainty and maybe short-circuited the process.

Whether you're a parent or not, the five things I share in this episode can be applied to your life right now so you can approach shifts and changes more easily and live life on your terms.

Oh, and I have updates on the progress of my upcoming book!

Grab your free chapter for a sneak preview. 

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Speaker 1:

So if I had got clarity on my life vision prior to becoming a father, then I probably could have navigated things a little bit better or at least better prepared myself for taking the leap. You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the Big Law Dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip-hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want, and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now we're friends. I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. A life that's lit. Hey, welcome to episode 115 of the Triple C Project. Now, if you're a subscriber or someone who listens religiously to this show every week, you will have noticed that there wasn't an episode last week. If you are a binge listener, who kind of comes to this every few weeks to kind of binge on what you've missed, this won't mean anything to you, but for you weekly listeners. Yeah, there wasn't an episode. And why was that? Really, it's just because I needed to conserve my energy, protect my energy, which is something that I encourage you to do and I encourage my clients to do. You see, you can keep pushing and, pushing, and pushing, but you have to recognise when sometimes you just need to take a step back, have a breath, have some space, and I've had a lot of projects on the go lately with the book and also a lot of things just with life. Last week, I just I just need, need some space, so that's why there was no episode. But thank you for being here. So what's going on? What's been happening in um in the last couple of weeks?

Speaker 1:

Well, I received the author proofs of the book, the triple c method, triple c project even, which was very exciting. If you've seen the reel reel on LinkedIn or on Instagram, you know it's kind of like Christmas. You receive this package in the mail and you rip the envelope open and inside, lo and behold, is the physical paperback copy of the book. So that's always a beautiful thing. I think I made an error. I made one error on the cover. I clicked the button for the matte rather than the glossy. So I resubmitted to get another copy with the glossy cover, which I think is going to look better, and then it's done. I still need to finish creating the workbook that will go along with the book, but that will be done in time for release because it has to be book, but that will be done in time for release because it has to be.

Speaker 1:

In other book news, you can now download a free chapter of the book. If you head to my website, irinespencecom, or to any of my social media channels, you can click the link and get your free chapter. I know a couple of people that have done that already and have really enjoyed reading it. They found it quite insightful and found things in there that already they can apply to their own life, so it's going to be a really good insight into what's to come.

Speaker 1:

For those of you who are wondering okay, well, what's the second book going to be about? How's it going to be different to the first, and what I can say is that if you listen to this podcast and if you've read my first book, you're going to love the second book. Um, I can't guarantee you. I can't guarantee much, but I can guarantee you that. Um, okay, um, what else is I going to say before we kick off? Yes, so one thing I'm trying to get better up. I might've said this before and it's it's kind of like a work in progress, but it's to keep asking for stuff. Asking for stuff that I want and that I need. That's testimonials from clients, but also includes things like reviews for this podcast. So I am asking, imploring, asking, begging even you to leave a review of the podcast on whatever podcast platform you are listening to this show on, or head to a link in the show notes, or to ratethispodcastcom and drop a rating and a review for the Triple C Project.

Speaker 1:

Reviews are really helpful for lots of reasons and really powerful and impactful. They help me know who's listening to the show, where you're listening, what you find insightful, what you like about the show, what you want, want more of, what you'd like me to dive into. It helps people who are looking for shows. It helps them to know that actually, yeah, this is a show that is for me, that I will like, based upon the, the reviews and ratings that the show has gotten so far. Um, and look, there's no. This, this podcast, is free to you like. I put a lot of uh, energy, time into put into producing it, because I, I, I want, I want to help people. I want it to be something that people can access. Even if you don't go on to to do coaching, you can still use what I share on this podcast, which are things from my own experience from coaching clients, to go ahead and change your life in the way that you want to change it.

Speaker 1:

So a review is if you get any value from the show. It's just a good way of, I guess, showing your appreciation for that. So here's an ask and I'm going to start asking more because that's my challenge to myself is an ask and I'm going to start asking more because that's my challenge to myself is to give a rating and a review, and in your review it doesn't have to be magnum opus, a sentence, a few lines. Just say what you like about the show, reference a specific episode and insight you took from an episode as well. If that's, if that's applicable, and if there's anything that you would like me to dive deeper in or anything that you you feel would enhance your listening experience, I would love to hear it too. Um, so really really appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

Uh, and final point in terms of, um, just general feedback. I got my first text message recently, which was very exciting. So if you look at the show description, you'll see there's a link to for you to send a text to the show um, about anything really. So I can't reply back. It doesn't give me a reply number, but, um, I will get it and I will read it and I will appreciate it. So, um, in addition to reviewing anything else you want to share, feel free to send a text. Um, particularly if there's anything that you don't like about the show. That's probably a good way of doing it rather than putting it in the review, because I'll still get it anyway and it'll be useful for me to hear.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's enough of the preamble, let's get to this week's show, where I want to talk about consciously creating your vision. But I'm going to talk about it through a different type of lens, really. So, as I record record this on Thursday, the 12th of September, it was my son's ninth birthday on the Monday, and that got me, as birthdays always do, sort of reminiscing back to nine years ago, when he was first born and where I was and what I was doing and how I felt, and I posted about this on my social media channels as well, and I'm going to expand upon that a little bit in this episode, but this is also. What also happened this week is that I delivered a webinar to a group of dads-in-law as well, which also enhanced my sort of look back at this period of being in big law and becoming a father and the tensions that occurred within that. So I thought that what I would do this week is I'm not going to repeat the webinar I delivered, for various reasons.

Speaker 1:

What I am going to do is take the five agenda points that I shared and apply them to my own experience back then and look at how things maybe could have been different. So the first thing I want to share is understanding challenges. So when I became a father, things, things changed, but they changed in ways that I hadn't fully expected, and it actually got me questioning like how? How am I going to have the career that I thought I was going to have and, at the same time, be the kind of father that I want to be? And all I could see were obstacles, were challenges, and they're the usual challenges that you've probably been through yourself, or you might think of the long working hours, the demands, the presenteeism, the high stress, which are some of the things that I could see were going to be significant challenges moving forward. And so they proved.

Speaker 1:

So I knew what the challenges were and I knew that I resented the sacrifices that I would have to make, that I had been making to that point working weekends, working on holiday, you know, being in the office till all hours but I hadn't taken the time to really understand why those challenges were challenges for me. And I feel that if I had taken that next step, gone that lower level deeper, to understand the challenges rather than just seeing them as challenges, within that I probably could have figured out a strategy, a plan to overcome or to navigate those challenges, and also figure out the ones where they were unable to navigate it, and decide what I wanted to do, whether I still wanted to pursue, um, in the way that I was going, or I wanted to change things completely, rather than having to wait five years before starting to make significant change. So if you're in that place where you feel you are a little bit directionless, a little bit stuck, you're not quite sure what to do, you feel that there are significant challenges in the situation that you're in, then go a level deeper and start to understand what those challenges are. Why are they challenges? For you, because that may be different as to why they could be challenges for somebody else. For you, because that may be different as to why there could be challenges for somebody else, something like long working hours is a challenge, but a challenge for me may be different to you. For me, it just meant that I never felt that I could be around for bed and bath time, you know. I mean, it meant that I felt I was always having to be on and I couldn't be present if I was always thinking about work. So that's just one aspect is now looking back with hindsight how I could have done that work to get deeper and understand the challenge, rather than just identifying that there was a challenge in place. Second thing I would have done was is get clarity on my life vision.

Speaker 1:

Now, I hadn't really thought much about my life vision I don't think many of us do, because it isn't something that we're really encouraged to do beyond the superficial or beyond the traditional climb the corporate ladder and get the house and the car and the family and the two holidays a year, or whatever it is, and the two holidays a year or whatever it is. That's kind of where I was. I was excited at being in Singapore. I saw that as my ticket to rising through the ranks and sort of having my own practice all the way up to partner. That's kind of all I really saw. I hadn't thought about the bigger picture of my life and how all of those parts would fit together.

Speaker 1:

And when I had a child then it became a problem because I knew I wanted to be around as much as possible for my child. But I didn't know how I could do that in the career that I was in because I hadn't given it any thought. And if I'd given it, thought before, thought to that vision before, when I kind of had the space to do that, then maybe I would have been pre-armed with the tools and with the knowledge about what I was then going to do next with maybe what I was going to ask for within the firm or maybe where I was going to move to next if I felt that the firm wasn't going to be the right place for me to fulfill that vision that I had. But I didn't do any of that. So suddenly I had this new child, I was hit with all of these feelings that I wasn't expecting.

Speaker 1:

I was questioning all of these aspects of my life and so I didn't have a clear head to start to come up with this clear vision, this clear life vision. I mean, I talk about this, I feel ad nauseum, but that's because I don't feel it can be overstated the importance of clarity as the first step in moving from survival to thrival or in living life lit, getting clear on what it is that you want, because if you don't know what you want, you can't communicate what you need, you can't speak to the right people, you can't make the right decisions. So if I had got clarity on my life vision prior to becoming a father, then I probably could have navigated things a little bit better or at least better prepared myself for taking the leap, built up a war chest, got certain things in place, made certain decisions. So, wherever you are, if you haven't already, get clear on your life vision and get granular, get right down to the detail of an ideal day or an ideal week and what those feelings are, what those themes are that come out of that Next point, be aligned in your decision-making. So, once you have a vision of the life that you want, then you can start to make decisions that support that vision. And again, that's what I didn't have.

Speaker 1:

I was constantly wrestling with do I take this call for this recruiter? Do I apply for that particular job? Do I go for this particular thing? Do I take on that particular assignment? There were so many options that I was wrestling with that. I was spending energy on that. If I'd had a clear life vision, I wouldn't have needed to do that, because it would be very easy to look at the opportunity or look at the situation, look at my core values and determine whether or not that opportunity or situation aligned with those values and if it didn't, let it go. But instead I wasted a lot of energy just angsting over things. I mean, I can think of one particular instance where I was put forward to a firm, was looking for somebody and a client put my name forward and I ended up in conversations with this firm and it would have been more of the same of what I was doing, in fact, if not busier than what I was doing, and it would have been. It would have involved sort of being split between two different Asian cities as well. But I wasn't happy where I was, and so I was looking at it through the lens of well, a change has got to be better than where I am. But actually it would have been terrible. You know, looking at it now with my values, it would have been terrible if I'd made that move, and it would have been very easy for me to not go through the motions, having the conversations and the interview and everything if I had been clear what my vision was and recognised that this didn't fit into it. So again, when you have your life vision, when you've picked out those core themes and values that come from that vision, then you can become more aligned and more streamlined in your decision making.

Speaker 1:

Building confidence another pillar of the triple C method method it's that believing that change is possible, even if that change is something that goes against the grain, is against the norm, something that you maybe haven't thought about before, and so for me, what that meant was recognising that actually walking away from big law is perfectly fine and there are a lot of sort of skills that I have, a lot of things that I have to offer that are transferable, and recognizing that I've overcome some pretty big obstacles before this point so I can use those skills, use that evidence to allow me to overcome challenges and obstacles that I see in front of me. Now I'm being confident that I can figure it out. But I didn't have that. In fact, I lacked confidence. I was literally overrun with limiting beliefs that big law was all that I could do and I just had to suck it up and keep at it, even though it was making me miserable and it was. It was taking me away from the role of fatherhood that I foresee might foresaw myself playing.

Speaker 1:

So you've got to get confident. This is why I refer you to I don't have the book in front of me, but my first book. I can't remember which chapter number, but about asking yourself where's the evidence? Looking at, okay, there's this big sort of challenge in front of me and I don't think I can do it. But why can't you do it? Where's the evidence that you can't do it? And actually, looking back at past things you've overcome and recognising there's likely greater evidence that you can do it than there is that you can't, because you can apply your previous skills, the previous things that you've learned, to the current situation. And in doing so and overcoming one obstacle that then builds confidence to overcome the next and the next, and the next. So you see that these all lead on from each other understanding the challenges, gaining light, clarity on your life, vision, aligned decision-making, building confidence. And the final point will probably be no surprise, but it's taking action, and take a courageous action. Because once you've built that belief, you've still got to make the thing happen. You've still got to step forward and try to create that vision that you had for yourself, that you have for yourself right, and I didn't.

Speaker 1:

I was very passive, even though I was unhappy and I didn't see how it could work. I was kind of very passive. I didn't feel that I could take action. I was scared to take action because I knew, or I felt, that I was in quite a privileged position with the job, that I had the center, that I had the life I was living. And you just don't walk away from that, you just don't tear that down. And I didn't feel there was anyone I could really talk to about that for those reasons as well, because all people could see was you're living in this tropical city state, you've got a condo with five pools, you travel for work, you go to these amazing places on holiday with your family. You get paid this amazing salary. All they could see was that. And so how do you tell them that, yeah, but it's all making me very, very miserable? How do you tell them that, yeah, I'm leaving, you don't? So I didn't take action.

Speaker 1:

If recruiters called, I'd probably have a conversation, but I wasn't proactively out there looking, looking for new things to do, looking at how I could extricate myself from the situation. I wasn't researching okay, well, what do I want to do? Instead, I wasn't applying to be on courses. I wasn't doing anything that would proactively take me out of the situation that I was in, and if I had again, I probably could have got out sooner. Would I still be doing the same thing now, who knows? But whatever it was, I would have proactively made a decision to change rather than waiting for change to happen.

Speaker 1:

So this is my, I guess, words of encouragement to you. My invitation to you is take that action. Even when you think it's, when you're fearful of taking it, take it. And if the action that you need to take just seems so big and overwhelming that it paralyzes you with fear, remember you can always come back to courage, stacking to the concept that I share in my first book. Courage stacking to the concept that I share in my first book. Use that courage stacking process of taking that bigger goal, that bigger situation, and breaking it down into as small components as you need to till you get to something that you feel that you could do relatively easily. And then stacking the next task on top of that and keep going through the task, through the actions you need to take, from the least scary building up so that by the time you'll get into the ones that seemed absolutely terrifying before, you've built this wall of evidence that you could do scary things, and actually this isn't really that scary.

Speaker 1:

So, to recap the agenda and through the lens of my own experience, I wish that back then I had understood the challenges more rather than just identifying them. I wish that I'd gained clarity on my life vision or just actually created a life vision of my own would have been great. I wish that I had then made aligned decisions that kind of fit in with the vision that I created. I wish I'd built more confidence by looking back at things that I had done, obstacles I'd overcome, and using that to allow me to face head on things that were in front of me now and I wish I'd taken courageous action. I wish I'd been more bold in the action that I was taking rather than waiting for things to happen. So I hope you have found that helpful, looking at life through my lens back then being a new father in Big Law and wondering how the hell I'm going to reconcile this career with fatherhood and looking back at some of the things that I wish that I had done, and if I had done them, things may have turned out differently. And again, this isn't a looking back with regret by any stretch of the imagination, because if I hadn't been through the times that I went through, I wouldn't be here doing what I am right now, and I love what I'm doing right now. But I may have been able to short circuit it to sort of make things happen a little bit quicker and sort of bypassed significant parts of the angst that I encountered along the way. So I'm hoping that this episode gets you thinking and helps you to sort of do that right now.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to hear from you which one of those five agenda items in particular stood out to you, or are you working through now? Maybe you're not working through any of them. Maybe listening to this episode has got you thinking. Ok, I need to start. I'd love for you to tell me. You can shoot me a text by clicking the link in the show description, or you can hit me up on email, hey, at IamRyanSpencecom, or over on my socials, on LinkedIn or on Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence. Um and uh, yeah, tell me, let me know.

Speaker 1:

Uh, and I'm sure, um, as I said in the post today, that back then, if I'd known that coaching was something that was available to me, um, you know, then maybe that could have changed things. Uh, for me back then, coaching was something that the firms gave to or provided to people on the partnership track, um, and so I thought that that's all the coaching was. I didn't know. It could help regular people like me figure out my brain and um, and where I wanted to go in life. Um, and again, if I, if I did know that and I had um hired and worked with a coach, then then maybe a lot of these five points, um, I would have already been in a position to deal with um once I became a father, uh, rather than many years later. So, uh, coaching could definitely help with that.

Speaker 1:

Um and so if you're listening to this episode, it's got you thinking I could really use some support. This sounds great, but there's a lot of work there that I'm not sure I can do this on my own. Then I'd love to have a conversation with you. So head to iamryanspencecom slash apply. There's a little video there that tells you a little bit more about kind of what I do, what I can help you with, and you can apply for a strategy call where we can have a chat. I can share some tools and strategies with you, figure out where you're at, where you want to get to, and talk about how we get you there. So yeah, irinespencecom slash apply and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Speaker 1:

That's it for me this week. Thanks again for being here, as always. Really do appreciate it. Looking forward to reading all of your reviews, of course, until next week. Have a fantastic week ahead and start living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C Project. In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcastcom, slash tripleC or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share. Share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three head to IamRyanSpencecom. Get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.