Speak with Power & Clarity

Speaker 1: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Lori Gilbertson is a former New York City sex crimes organized crime and homicide prosecutor television legal analyst educator and entrepreneur as the owner of Tribeca Consulting she helps professionals communicate with Clarity confidence and creativity in their public speaking presentations trial work and media appearances in 2019 she became a member of the board of directors and helped launch legal entrepreneurs for justice thank you so much for joining us today Lori please share with us more about who you are Melanie thank you so much for having me I am a former sex crimes homicide and criminal prosecutor turned television legal analyst turned legal educator turned entrepreneur I am the founder and owner of Tribeca blue Consulting named for my favorite neighborhood when I used to live in New York City and I hope uh Executives entrepreneurs and trial lawyers communicate clearly and confidently whether they're in the courtroom in the boardroom or on television you have such an interesting background she built it empowers you to experience the life and business that you crave and the question I am often asked is how understanding that growing a career and business is a marathon and not a Sprint give us some tips for how you've built a career and business that you crave and how you've been able to do that wow so we're starting with the the super easy questions right you know I came to entrepreneurship I think with a really winding path I always thought that I was going to be a career prosecutor it was my dream job I wanted to be from my very first day in criminal law class and law school a criminal prosecutor in New York City that was my dream job I got the job um after many many interviews and I did it for 10 years I loved it I walked on air I thought this was it but after those 10 years I really was burnt out seeing people at their worst seeing the terrible things that people do to each other and realizing that I was just such a small part of trying to make their lives better and I needed a change and so I wound through some different career paths both in legal education and in doing some television legal analysts work and eventually when we kind of had a surprise move my family and I to Denver a few years ago and that launched me on this path to entrepreneurship it came out of a frustration of not being able to find kind of that perfect job that dream job that would have the skills I wanted to use the experience that I had and also the flexibility that I really needed for my family I thought well if I can't find it I'm going to create it for myself and that's where it started it's so interesting that you knew from the very beginning that you wanted to be a prosecutor I mean not everyone knows that and then I love how you gave yourself permission to make a leap into something new because we don't always do that sometimes we think oh I've worked so hard to get here I have to stay here but it's great that you gave yourself permission to do something different and to dream a little bit to find what it is that's right for you yeah I think that permission did not come easily being trained as a lawyer it it's a fairly linear training you're really taught to think in a certain way and as a trial lawyer although it it's super creative in so many ways it can also be somewhat compartmentalized and it's hard to think of things that are more different than being a lawyer and being an entrepreneur in the ways that you think so in terms of giving myself permission to start doing that it was really somewhat organic I really just kind of decided you know I'm just going to try this I'm just going to get in there I'm just going to try it I didn't didn't have a full plan I knew exactly though what skills I had I knew what I wanted to use and then it was just a matter of like you said giving myself permission to start to craft a way that it would really work for me and that was kind of the fun part that was really the fun part in the beginning of starting to think like what am I going to call this company and what are my offerings going to be and then who am I going to talk to and how am I going to do this and you asked about the how and the how for me in jumping in was I started with a course called co-starters which is all over the country and it's for people who want to be entrepreneurs you go into this nwe course and you get mentors and you're with other entrepreneurs and it just exposed me to a completely completely different world and I started to love it and that's where it all started and that's what kind of gave me the impetus to keep going because I saw also that other people were giving themselves permission to do the same thing yeah to dream and also to fail because sometimes we think what if this doesn't work and you put so much into your training and background that I'm sure making that leap was challenging but good for you for being able to dream and saying you know I'm going to try this and we'll see if it works and I'm going to keep going until I find what's right well thank you that's always nice to hear I think as an entrepreneur that cycle and that process of trying failing learning and then trying again is one that is just constant I think that's been one of the hardest things to get used to it's that feeling that it's kind of a constant transition and you just get used to it there's a video clip I think it's a commercial and it's of Michael Jordan and it's for Nike I think I use it in some presentations and he's talking about how many shots he tried for and failed and then in the end he says I try so hard I fail so much and that's why I succeed I love it I love basketball love him love seeing it I try to keep that in mind when that happens every time there are those little failures or even big failures that you just got to keep trying it's a great reminder because when we think of an idea oh I want to try this the first thing that our our mind can say sometimes is what if you don't what if it doesn't work so that is a great reminder of continuing to just move forward and make progress yeah absolutely and I think every entrepreneur has to deal with that at one point or another no matter how successful you get no matter how sometimes it can really seem like Smooth Sailing I think you're kind of always on guard for what can happen when you start those new things we're all consistently building and creating our teams whether you have a five person team or you oversee hundreds of people as Leaders we are still in communication with those closest to us and communicating our business and personal brand to the world why do you think communication is a crucial and overlooked leadership tool communication is a really vulnerable thing when you are communicating yourself your brand your business to the world that can often be a really scary place to be you're putting yourself out there people are watching you and they're listening to you and ultimately people have a real fear of being judged and they have a real fear of what Their audience is going to think of them do do I know what I'm talking about do I not know what I'm talking about you know what are they going to think of how I look how I sound and people tend to make communication about them when really it's about your audience so that's why I think people often Overlook it as being such a powerful tool to show leadership to both internal teams external teams and and in the world in general because it just strikes at some really innate fears that most people have about getting up in front of people kind of laying yourself be and being judged you're right and I think people will follow you and want to talk to you if if you're showing your real self to the world and that can be really hard to do it can be I know for me it took a while when I started stepping out of being a trial lawyer and doing some television work I wasn't nervous to be on live TV I had three little kids at home and so being on live TV where they were doing my hair and makeup like this was like a break this was awesome like nobody nobody can bother me this is nobody can talk to me I look like I've had sleep this is is awesome um so I wasn't nervous about that part but it took a long time for me to get out of kind of that trial lawyer Persona that Advocate and what one of the Court TV hosts told me was just to kind of loosen up and be myself and just let that shine through and it's one thing to think about it it's another to get comfortable with it and it took me a long time to kind of Break Free of that Persona that I was able to put on and start really being myself that's hard yeah I see how that would be the case CU I would assume you put on a certain kind of armor when you went in to court to represent your clients but also to protect yourself from the stories and everything that you were hearing and experiencing every day yeah I was not so good at protecting myself from that I'm really empathetic and it was very difficult for me to separate kind of the trauma that I was seeing all the time and compartmentalize it and then just go home and not think about it you know I tried and you know it worked and and and eventually it was it was fine but there is a part of you that has to really try to put yourself in the perspective of the people who are victims of crimes and the crimes that I was Prosecuting and also in that whole idea of being a prosecutor is about doing Justice it's not just about taking a case and and winning it and so also putting looking at the perspective of what was going on too from the defense point of view and really figuring out what is the fairest resolution of each case and so there is a certain armor that goes up there was the professional prosecutor trial lawyer I think most people have professional persona but it's probably emphasized more when you're in court every day and I bet your empathetic side made you a great lawyer putting yourself in the shoes of your client communicating with the other side I think that empathy much as as you were saying communication can be a real Overlook leadership tool empathy is one as well empathy allows you to form connection you know it allowed me to form a connection with people who besides my job I probably would have never come into contact with or had the opportunity to meet or to be put in the position of trying to help through a difficult time so that empathy that kind of lowering of the armor a little bit and um being empathetic allowed me to make those connections which when you take it a few steps further it allows people who have been traumatized to feel comfortable taking the stand and telling a jury about it or people who have gone through a difficult situation it allows them the ability to open up about it and get some help and talk to someone like me who may have been in a position to do that you are a former New York City sex crime organized crime and homicide prosecutor I can imagine the experiences and all of the stories that you've heard share with us your knowledge and thoughts on the criminal justice system oh my goodness another super easy question it has been really interesting to see a lot of the changes that have gone on in the world since I left that field and to watch it in a different way I got to watch in a different way commenting on cases and especially now I've been able to see it in a different way just through all of the Civil Rights movements that are going on recently there are so many court es in the news these days some of them extremely controversial and what I think has been wonderful about a lot of that it is bringing the things that were previously shielded from view although trials are public you know and that's in the Constitution it's bringing it into the public View and it's really allowing first some reform that's necessary in terms of the way judges work the way prosecutors work the way juries work and trying to eliminate some bias you know some real inherent bias in the system yeah and it seems like with video and social media today I'm sure that brings in another entire element to cases oh my gosh it really it really does it gives it widespread just a widespread view um to people who may not have ever um thought about or been a part of any of these kinds of issues the right to you know a trial it's ingrained in our legal system it's ingrained in our constitution but it's not something people really think about until they're faced with something like on social media like crimes that are videotaped like when people see those injustices right in front of them it can spur them to action and that's just going to be important for the criminal justice system moving forward absolutely I have twins who just turned eight and it was fun to learn that you have twins also uh I think about the effect of social media and what it has on kids and the effects it has on all of us what are your thoughts on being a digital minimalist oh yes I'm looking right now on the even the books I have holding up my my computer that we're talking on um is my book digital minimalism I have twins also mine are 14 a boy and a girl and then I also have a 16-year-old son something I never thought as kind of a digital minimalist that I would ever want to do is during the pandemic my 14-year-old daughter wanted an outlet she was home she was um you know doing school at home she was going a little crazy and she asked if she could start a YouTube channel she's a dancer and she's a gymnast and and she loves video and she just wanted to do something and I thought about it and I thought okay go ahead and through that she learned how to take video how to edit video what kinds of things would be interesting on video she met kids from all over the country and forged relationships that she never would have without that so it opened my mind and I think for business these days there's some things you need you really do have to embrace the wonderful things it can do while being kind of cognizant of how ultimately it can be totally distracting right like you get on social media and 20 minutes are gone like that right yes I schedule in certain times to be on social that way I'm not getting lost in the scroll right that so smart I ask this question at the end of every episode because I believe it's so important to bring joy that is Meaningful to us into our daily lives and our lives over time magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy I love that question we don't think about Joy enough I think we just get caught up in life and and forget about the joy of living when I started my business and I was feeling all those entrepreneur feelings exhilaration excitement doubt everything I adopted the Nike motto that you see that says just do it just do it and so that's what I started doing and I am a lifelong procrastinator if anyone can think of a reason not to do something and not to get started I am I a pro at that so I just told myself that is my motto just do it and I started applying that to business I had a client who came in and he asked for a different service he wanted some trial coaching had never done it before but I thought oh that sounds okay we did it it went great and I thought oh this would be a great offering so I'm launching trial coaching as part of my business and I just thought I'm just going to do it and then I try to apply that to life too especially during the pandemic I thought what would bring me actually that joy and that happiness what are some things I want to do so I started meditating was something I wanted to try my daughter made complete fun of me but I took an adult ballet class cuz I always wanted to do it I love it and as a twin mom I can completely understand meditating and doing something for you yes people say like you do it for you and ultimately that makes you better for other people and it's better in your business you're better mom better with your family and that's all well and good and it's true but I think doing it as you said just for you to bring that magic and joy to you is so important I would encourage people listening just do it whatever it is whatever's in your mind whatever you think is going to spark some bit of joy in you even if you're not sure just do it and see what happens you have built an incredible career thank you so much for joining us today please tell our listeners how and where they can find you absolutely first thank you so much for having me I've just loved our conversation ation if you are really interested in exploring how to elevate your communication so you can take advantage of every opportunity that's out there for you you can find some information on my website it's Tribeca blue consulting.com and just sign up for a free consultation I'd love to chat with you um about what you're looking for and see if I can be of help I also love to connect with people on LinkedIn um it's so much fun just to to meet new people learn about new businesses um feel free to reach out to me there as well if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer a community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our she built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Sheil it blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today say thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave