The Secret to Attorney Wellness

“Know Thyself” is the most famous maxim inscribed at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, advising visitors to understand their human limitations, mortality, and character. It was foundational to Socratic philosophy, focusing on inner wisdom over external knowledge. This saying is traditionally said to have originated with the Seven Sages, a legendary group of philosophers and statesmen who flourished in the 6th century BCE, who collectively authored this important maxim.

This course is designed for you to actualize wellness as an attorney in the fundamental areas of Leadership, Management, Finances, Physical Health or Mental Health. Most attorneys experience deep internal conflicts when it comes to creating more wellness, balance and mastery in their careers. One part of you says “You need 8 hours of sleep every night” and another part of you says “If I just grind it out for another 2 hours everything will be just fine”. In order to truly “Know Thyself”, we need to know the numerous “selves” that participate in our thought processes. We will use research results in Neuroscience and Psychology show you why these types of internal conflicts will keep you from taking the necessary steps to create wellness for yourself. We will also give you an opportunity to have a transformational experience and take actions that promote your wellness.

In this 1 hour program, Actualis will teach you about the ways chronic stress, sleep deprivation and substance use disorders impact your ability to function with competence and diligence. Then we will look at your personality style and internalized saboteurs to gain clarity on the source of unhealthy beliefs and patterns that negatively effect your performance. This awareness will allow you to move forward towards new healthy behaviors that will impact all areas of your professional life as an attorney.

It is not enough for you to just “know the law”. 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. Legal knowledge is essential, but in order to thrive in this environment, you must master the fundamentals of Leadership, Management, Finances, Physical Health and Mental Health.

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

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, most of the strategies used by attorneys have negative impacts on your brain chemistry and lead to chronic stress and burn out. Upon reflection, you will discover parts of yourself, or sub-personalities, that align with your emotions to create powerful messages to continue negative behaviors. These saboteurs feel like the real you, because they have been sending you important messages on how to stay safe since you were a child. Research in psychology and neuroscience indicates that changing your behavior requires you to engage, challenge, and integrate these negative messages in order to break out of destructive patterns that do not serve. Without this psychological intervention, you cannot master all of the fundamentals areas that are mandatory to become a truly healthy, wealthy and wise attorney.

All attorneys have an internal council of saboteurs, but each attorney has a special set unique to their personality. It is normal to feel frustrated and struggle in mastering the fundamental areas for succeeding in 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 emotional power over you because they use powerful code words and memories to engage your limbic system with fight, flight or freeze. These saboteurs keep you from setting realistic goals, and following through with appropriate strategies to break out of bad habits.

Attorneys’ mandatory duties include:

You might be experiencing this while reading this course description…. “Working on your wellness is a waste of time, because it never works out anyway”… “That is a bunch of New Age BS”… “I don’t need that, I’m not crazy”… It is normal to avoiding making painful mistakes using internal messages. However, these automatic response patterns set up insurmountable internal conflicts, and sabotage your attempts to achieve mastery and wellness.

Do you struggle to maintain financial, mental and physical health? 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 how to do this personal growth work, so it makes sense why you are performing poorly, and fail to improve year after year.

Actualizing wellness starts with understanding your true nature, which is quick and easy thanks to personality style assessments. In this program, you will identify some of the negative patterns of your thoughts, feelings and actions arising from your personality that keep you from achieving your goals. Then we will introduce you to 5 positive sub personalities – Your Sage Powers- that you can call upon to balance out your destructive saboteurs. Finally, we will teach you quick and easy mental fitness tips that will change your brain chemistry and structure so that you pay less attention to your saboteurs and automatically engage with your Sage Powers.

After your training, schedule your 15-minute Discovery Session with me to discuss your saboteurs, your Sage Powers and systems for creating wellness and mastery in the fundamental areas of your legal career.

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):

Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford

SCHEDULE:

TIME	SUBJECT	PARTICIPANT TASKS
0:00 – 5:00	Overview of Program Outline –	Slides
3:00 – 10:00	Introduction and personal story of how my saboteurs created my ethical transgression and how the Sage Power resolved it.	Slides
10:00 – 15:00	Model Rules – Your Brain Wellness, Your Competency and Your Ethics	DOC 1: Model Rules ASSESSMENT QUIZ #1: Determine your area of focus
15:00 – 35:00	The use of DISC personality style assessment and Positive Intelligence to Identify Negative Internal Sub Personalities and Saboteurs	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	5 Sage Powers and mental fitness exercises	Slides DOC 5: Saboteur and Sage chart DOC 6: Pain Map and Power Map
55:00 – 60:00	Change Management, Accountability and Support	Slides
60:00 – 65:00	CONCLUSION	ASSESSMENT QUIZ #3 PROGRAM FEEDBACK DELIVERY OF CERTIFICATE

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.