THE CYCLES OF ACTUALIZATION FOR ATTORNEYS – PAIN MAPS AND POWER MAPS

THE CYCLES OF ACTUALIZATION FOR ATTORNEYS – PAIN MAPS AND POWER MAPS

The cycles of life inform us about our place in our careers as attorneys. Learn this system for assessing your cycles of breakdowns, failure, and crisis and how to transform and break out of these cycles that repeat themselves day in and day out.

Timing is everything. A good lawyer thinks in a linear and organized way, so as not to miss any important issues. However, our lives have a circular pattern that avoids straight lines and hierarchical outlines. Business cycles of “Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing” is an example of a non-liner organizational theory that can relieve stress around breakdowns that appear destructive. There are cycles of personal growth that you cannot avoid when learning how to be a healthy and satisfied Attorney. Research shows that most attorneys have suffered a great deal in their careers and have regrets, remorse and feel hopeless. We show you the Pain map and the Power map to help you understand where you are and what your best next step will be. In addition, your personality pre-disposes you to certain predictable negative behaviors that keep you from reaching your goals as an Attorney. You will learn about, and try, transformational experiences to move your from the Pain map over to the Power map.

This wholistic course is designed to improve your wellness as an attorney in the areas of Leadership, Management, Finances, Relationships, Physical Health and Mental Health. In this 1 hour program, Actualis will teach you the DISC personality assessment and the Positive Intelligence mental fitness tools. These tools help you understand your true nature and transform painful challenges that keep you stuck in unhealthy patterns that negatively effect your life’s purpose. This transformation will allow you to move forward towards achieving your personal, professional and spiritual goals as an attorney.

Unlike other professions, attorneys have critical ethical duties and burdensome competency requirements that demand high levels of personal performance, year in and year out. Failure to properly perform any of these broad mandates can lead to complaints, public reprimands, suspension and debarment. In order to mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically thrive in this environment, you must master the fundamentals.

Attorneys’ mandatory duties include:

• Competence (Model Rules 1.1)
  • A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client.
  • Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.
• Diligence (Model Rules 1.3)
  • A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.
• Communication (Model Rules 1.4)
  • A lawyer shall obtain informed consent
  • A lawyer shall keep client reasonably informed.
  • A lawyer shall comply with reasonable requests for information.
• Conflict of Interest (Model Rules 1.7)
  • Representation must not be limited by a personal interest of the attorney
• Safekeeping Property (Model Rules 1.15)
  • Duty of trustee for client monies
• Declining or Terminating Representation (Model Rules 1.16)
  • When a lawyer’s health (mental or physical) interferes with their ability to practice effectively, they have an ethical duty to step down.
• Expediting Litigation (Model Rules 3.2)
  • A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation
    consistent with the interests of the client
• Misconduct (Model Rules 8.4)
  • Lawyers cannot Commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the honesty,
    trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer. This includes DUI and Illegal drug use or possession

In order to achieve self-actualization, your challenge is to stay in the flow of excellence every day. It is obvious that most attorneys cannot meet these challenges. When compared to the general population, attorneys suffer from twice as many incidents of substance use disorders and mental health issues. Furthermore, increasing numbers of attorneys are being disciplined, sued and incarcerated for wrongdoing in their roles as lawyers.

All attorneys start out wanting to be successful. However, each attorney is unique. For this reason, in order to have a long and truly successful career in the law, you have to first understand yourself and where you are in the cycle of development. You carry both valuable skills and lifelong challenges to manage, but without proper timing and alignment with the natural cycle of events, you will quickly become frustrated in your efforts. Without this critical data, you cannot master the fundamentals areas that are mandatory to become a truly healthy, wealthy and wise attorney.

All attorneys have blind spots, so it is normal to feel frustrated and struggle in mastering these fundamental areas of your legal career. It is painful, humiliating and inevitable to make mistakes as a lawyer, so it is normal to have deep fears of failure. These fears gain power over you and keep you from setting realistic goals and creating appropriate strategies to break out of bad habits. The fears create strong beliefs that working on your wellness is a waste of time, because it never works out anyway. Avoiding painful mistakes with fear-based beliefs set up insurmountable internal conflicts, and sabotage your attempts to achieve mastery and wellness.

Do you struggle to maintain financial, mental and physical health? Have you given up on being happy and fulfilled as an attorney? Are you avoiding doing the work to become a good leader and manager in your firm? The legal world is full of burned out attorneys who are afraid to change negative behaviors because they don’t want to risk worsening their bad situation. Law School and CLE programs won’t teach you this quick and comprehensive way to diagnose where you are in the cycle of development and what your next best step will be.

Research in the areas of neuroscience, psychology, organizational development and economics prove that engaging with these personality assessments and theoretical models of personal and organizational development necessarily create powerful results for you. Self- Actualization starts with understanding your true nature, which is quick and easy thanks to personality style assessments. Your next step is to simply identify your current challenges and unmet needs and goals. Then you can reference the Pain Map and Power Map to identify patterns of your thoughts, feelings and actions arising from your personality that keep you from achieving your goals. Next, you can focus your valuable time and attention to mastering new patterns of engagement in the fundamentals areas that incorporate the right set of strategies and tactics that will work for your personality. The last step is to assess the risk of making the change, and making a realistic, informed decision to transform your life using the proposed strategy. We call this the LAICE method.

STEP 1: LEARN about your personality, your saboteurs, and your core needs.

STEP 2: ARTICULATE what you really want to happen in your life as an attorney. We will focus on Leadership, Management, Finances, Personal Health or Mental Health.

STEP 3: IDENTIFY your personality traits and the core issues, patterns, and your reactions that are causing you the biggest challenges and keeping you from getting what you want. 

STEP 4: CREATE a brain-storm of ideas, strategies, tactics and support to create new patterns and achieve what you want.

STEP 5: EVALUATE the risks and dangers in getting what you want, and incorporate appropriate safeguards in your plan.

After your training, schedule your 15-minute Discovery Session with me to clarify your goals, identify your challenges in achieving your goals, and brainstorm strategies to overcome your challenges.

REQUIRED PRE-WORK (15 minutes)

We require you take a DISC personality style assessment before this training. You can take a basic free test DISC assessment at 123 Test https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/

We require you take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/

RECOMMENED READING (Audiobooks are available on Spotify):

• The 8^th Habit by Stephen Covey
• Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine
• Tribal Leadership

SCHEDULE:

TIME	SUBJECT	PARTICIPANT TASKS
0:00 – 5:00	Overview of Program Outline –	Slides
3:00 – 10:00	Introduction and personal story of how I used Pain Maps and Power Maps to Self-Actualized my Attorney Wellness and Law Firm culture	Slides
10:00 – 15:00	Theory of Cycles in Personal Development – Pain Maps and Power Maps	DOC 1: Pain Map and Power Map ASSESSMENT QUIZ #1:  Determine your area of focus
15:00 – 35:00	The use of DISC personality style assessment and Positive Intelligence to Actualize your Attorney Wellness	Slides ASSESSMENT QUIZ #2: Basic DISC DOC 2: Sample free DISC assessment results – 123 Test DOC 3: Sample paid DISC assessment results – Wiley DOC 4: Free Saboteur assessment – Positive Intelligence
35:00-55-00	Step by step tools to create self-actualization for every stage of development	Slides
55:00-60-00	Tribal Leadership and Law Firm Actualization	Slides
60:00 – 65:00	CONCLUSION	ASSESSMENT QUIZ #3 PROGRAM FEEDBACK DELIVERY OF CERTIFICATE

ABOUT ACTUALIS ATTORNEY WELLNESS AND MARK C. DALY:

Even before becoming an attorney in 1999, I learned how to develop my personal and professional skills by attending workshops, educating myself, getting peer support, and hiring professional coaches and therapists. I learned how to bring out the best in myself, my companies and the teams I supervised in my legal career. Over the past 20 years I have become a certified professional coach and a certified Shadow Work ® coach and facilitator. I am a Registered, Non-Licensed Therapist in the State of Colorado with strict duties of confidentiality, which is very necessary when working with attorneys! I have taken courses in Voice Dialogue, Gottman Marriage Counseling and Emotionally Focused Therapy. I have used these skills to coach executives, managing and associate attorneys, as well as support staff, to become more satisfied and successful practicing law. Since 2004 I have been a registered CLE provider. I have coached and mentored dozens of attorneys in law office start up, practice management, and immigration law fundamentals. I have been an immigration attorney for 26 years. In the beginning, I struggled financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I have been married, divorced, and finally remarried in 2010. As a single dad dealing with a traumatic divorce, I know what it is like to mismanage a law office, break rules of competence and act unethically. Through it all, I have managed to learn from my mistakes and gain mastery in the 5 fundamental areas of attorney wellness – Leadership, Management, Finances, Mental Health and Physical Health. I twice started, built up, managed, and sold successful law practices in Nashville and Denver, and now I am financially free. I maintain excellent and loving relationships with my wife and grown children, and I have a great relationship with my extended family and even my ex-wife! In 2025, my wife and I went on a one-year sabbatical around the world to learn, grow, relax and enjoy life. I gained a better understanding of myself, and decided to become an inactive attorney and launch Actualis Attorney Wellness. My primary aim is to help attorneys feel good, enjoy life, and do the right thing.