I’ve had a lot of legal secretaries and assistants over the years. Some were good at their job, some were very good, and some were worth their weight in gold.
The most valuable assistants were the ones with the guts to tell me what I needed to hear when I wasn’t ready to hear it.
The ones who pushed me to do something I didn’t want to do (but needed to). The ones who didn’t put up with my stubborn ways or my “because I’m the boss” attitude. The ones who respected me but weren’t afraid of me.
They helped me see what I couldn’t see and do what I didn’t want to do. They helped me grow as a person and a professional.
If you have people like that in your life, be grateful. And listen to them. They won’t always be right, but they will be right more often than they are wrong.
I heard from an attorney who is fortunate to have an assistant like that in her life, and fortunate that she listened to her.
The subject: increasing her fees, which I wrote about recently.
She wrote:
This blog really resonated with me. I got busier during the pandemic than I had ever been before, so my assistant convinced me to raise my fees by way more than I was comfortable with. I raised my immigration consultation fee by 15%, the flat fee for my most popular service by 33%, and my hourly rate by 40%. I’m still just as busy as ever and my assistant is going to get a big bonus this year. 🙂
Why do we often refuse to do things we know we should do, even things we want to do?
Fear. What if we’re wrong, What if we mess up, What if there are unforeseen consequences?
We’re smart but we’re human.
So why do we then listen to someone else when they tell us to do that very thing?
Because, through them, we hear the voice of our inner wisdom speaking truth. Because the voice we hear is our own voice, giving ourselves permission to do what we want to do.
Make sure you have someone in your life who cares about you enough to tell you what you need to hear.
