#37 Are you yourself at work by Zach Reynolds

Zach Reynolds has been a property lawyer for the last 20 years. He is a partner in a central London Law firm. Zach leads a team of 20 property lawyers. A strong and successful lawyer with deep insights.

What is – Not being yourself?

[0:53] Zach says that happens when we are paying too much attention to

…..what we think ought to be done

…..the rules we have to abide by

And not enough attention to your intuition and what we feel and that takes us away from being ourself.

“Understand what the rule is and be prepared to explore close to the boundary.”

We can lose our sense of ourselves and it can be restricting when we dont bring our feelings, our emotions, our opinions and we get driven from outside expectations of how we ought to be perfect.

So, stepping outside the usual framework that lawyers are supposed to operate in and giving a bit of yourself brings added value to your clients. 

Where does the need to be perfect come from?

[6:43] Zach says lawyers are instructed to get everything right by their clients and that becomes a benchmark for them. However, this can happen in so many other businesses, and we become attached to this idea of getting it right and we get attached to winning.

We are not going to get it right all the time, we don't do it in other areas of our life. This expectation to be perfect from clients puts a lot of pressure. And I'd like to take that pressure off in the law domain as it stifles away creativity and it causes procrastination and things take more time.

What is it to be yourself?

[10:15] Start with understanding what you stand for and what makes you tick. You can use this as a guiding principle and keep it as your light.

“I do a lot of interviews, and sometimes people tell me what I want to hear, and I feel like I’m not getting the real person.”

Understand what you are all about and understand what you fundementaly stand for

“BE YOU, and don’t do something that feels fundamentality out of style with who you are and what you’re about; because the world will then organise itself around you. Because the world that organises around you is the one that is sustainable”

Have Faith that:

1. Being who you are is enough
2. Being who you are will be enough

What was the worst moment for you when you weren’t being yourself?

[17:03] At the start of his career Zach had big dreams and ambitions about who he was going to be as a lawyer and then he got to a point in this career where what he was putting in became unsustainable and he came off the path of his dream.

Paying too much attention to numbers, paying too much attention on profits and not focusing on the purpose squeezes the dream out of the picture. 

From the result of these two, Zach felt disconnected from himself and the people that were closest to him also felt disconnect from him.

“Once you’re there, you get feedback from people that tell you that you are off the track.”

At this point Zach had lost sight of his path and the worst part to him is that you don’t realize it.

The impact of not being yourself is:

[20:10]

1. Not being yourself is not sustainable in the long run.
2. You fall off the path of your own dream.
3. You get disconnected from yourself and others.

This impacts your family and business.

So, when you hear someone say:

“I see you, I don’t feel you”

“You are just not the same as you used to be.”

Those statements are critical signs that you are not being your true self in your essence.

What is one final message you’d like to say?

[22:30] Pay attention to what is going on inside you and honor that. It’s the key to connection, and as humans, we are driven by connection.