Tuesday Talks with Darleen
Transforming Legal Contracts into Creative Partnerships {Ep 23}
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Tuesday Talks with Darlene podcast. The show that goes deep into the topics of spirituality, intuition, the chakras and business. I will be building on the traditional knowledge of all of these and being a rebel by busting myths. There will be solo episodes and also episodes with guests. I'm your host Darlene, let's get started. Welcome to Tuesday Talks with Darlene and my special guest today is Michelle Whitehead from Carefree Council. Now, Michelle Whitehead is an Australian lawyer, mediator and mentor who provides ethical business owners with the ultimate tools for protecting both themselves and their clients with integrity. Now, Michelle believes wholeheartedly in the need for education around legal concepts, particularly for creative entrepreneurs like me, who went faced with paying a lawyer to bore them to death or the risk of not knowing yet, I would get that. And I love that she's enchanted by the fascinating challenge of reinventing traditional legal constructs for the needs of a new paragon, paragon. - My dime. - My dime, the new paragon, I'm enacted. You want your business owning. - And I just, I love that. And so, Michelle creates contracts that care, demystifies the intellectual property, advises on setting brave boundaries, and handles conflict with compassion, and provides management with a woo-woo twister, I love this. Now, she's also at School of the Cart Resist, any story that ends happily ever after, and that's like means we're all a lovely thing for after endings. - Yeah. - For those ones. - Take litangers. - Yeah. Now, what really fascinates me and why I'm so grateful that you're coming on is that you do incorporate the woo with being a lawyer, and it's like, wow! So I'd love for you to tell us how you actually do all of that. You know, how did all of this come about as well? - Yeah, so, basically, I spent my entire childhood, I was just gonna be an author, right? Anytime I was gonna be an author. But then I got through my English degree and discovered that it didn't actually lead to instant fame and success, and all that sort of thing, you know? It wasn't actually gonna support my family. So I drifted into a law degree because at its base, law is about stories, right? It's storytelling, but it's just, you know, making your story persuasive enough that the judge will believe it or all that sort of stuff. And I worked, at the time I was starting my family, and I was working mainly from home, but sort of a hybrid kind of situation for a small country law firm where they already had lawyers who were doing all the criminal and family law that I didn't wanna get involved in. So I basically did everything else, and that was all of the small business for the local neighborhood, all of the contracts, and the small business kind of disputes and things like that. After a while there, I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with adversarial legal system stuff. Even when I got a win for my clients, they lost because it cost them so much in time away from their business, and you'd never get all of your legal fees back, and the stress and the cost to their families, and it was just heartbreaking. And I was also picking up my fair share of the curious trauma from being involved in this constant state of stress. And so I went back to uni. I went back to do my masters. I was pregnant at the time, so I did it over two years, and my little daughter came with me to every seminar. So that was fun. And I basically, I majored in alternative dispute resolution, and I was gonna quit the law and become a channel of peace and be a mediator, and just make everyone be friendly with each other and be paid like adults and talk things out reasonably, and make good decisions care for each other. And I had an ethical dispute with the law I was working with, so I quit them, and suddenly realized that I had no way of marketing a mediation business. I didn't know where to start. I had no clients. I had no, like, how do I even get my name out there? So I stumbled into this beautiful, feminine, connected world of online marketing in various Facebook groups. And discovered, like, there were this whole communities of heart-centered, beautiful, caring, connected, wonderful business owners, working from home just like me, who were doing incredible world-changing, amazing stuff, but they had no boundaries. And they weren't looking after themselves, and they were scared of the legal stuff. And every time they tried to put these kinds of things in place, they felt completely disconnected from them, like they're terms and additions of this alien appendage that they'd kind of tacked on the edge of their business 'cause they had to have it, but it felt really icky and they just don't know and ever touched it. Or they felt mean and nasty, you know, dealing in this area. And so I kind of forgave myself for having sold out to become a lawyer and started reinventing myself as the kind of lawyer that I'd always wanted to be. And that was someone who could be 100% authentic. Like, I didn't have to put on my mask with the suit and be this distant professional. I could just be homeschooling, fiction reading, silly me, and connect with my clients at that level. And in line with that, I started redefining the way I thought about traditional legals. You know, I started to think that contracts and their base, they're all about pairing and mutual understanding and making a commitment and promises to each other. And risk management is self-care. You know, it's dealing with anxiety and sorting out the limiting beliefs and the real world dangers and actually taking action on the stuff you need to take action on to keep yourself and your business and your family and your clients safe. So yeah, and along the way, I discovered that the people that I didn't want to work with, the ones who expected me to be in a suit in a big city office. The more I allowed the spiritual, whimsical, fanciful part of me through, the more I became the lawyer who works in fairyland, the more I aligned all of my branding and my presentation and my wording, you know, talking about contracts, they could containers that hold the space for the relationship you want to have with your clients. The more I attracted those clients who I, whose eyes light up, like they come into my online offices, like, oh, I think I found you, you know, you're what I've been looking for. I didn't know you existed. You're the unicorn I've been searching for. And the ones who don't get that invite, they come in and they're like, I'm in the wrong place that I'm leaving now. And I'm like, yay, I just want to work with you anyway. So that's perfect, you know. We just self out and don't come into my space because we're not a good fit. So that's, I love how you say that. And I love how you say not having to put on, you know, a mask and a suit and everything because I did the same when I was nursing. You know, I put on this, this whole aura. And I love how, and that's what I call about business, is that we can be the people that we're meant to be. You know, like, show up like fairy lean. I love and I was actually going to mention your background because it's like, oh, and I love it. And that's like me, you know, showing off my paintings. We're showing who we are. And I love how you're bringing that into, you know, being a lawyer. Like, that's just so cool. And you did mention why Keri's trauma as a lawyer. How did you manage to, you know, work through that so you could become the lawyer that you want to be? - Yeah, so when I first stumbled into this online world of entrepreneurs, the first thing I started to do, I was a fish out of water. And the first thing I started to do is start experimenting and using other people's like, grabbing freebies. And 'cause I didn't have much of an income at that stage. So I would just take big advantage of the offers that were out there and the people who were looking for people to taste their work. And so it became a journey of personal development and spiritual development as much as it was a journey of professional development. And I've discovered over the past six, seven years that it is an ongoing focus on what best practice means to me and how I want to embody that integrity and authenticity in my business. As much as it is about, you know, learning the professional, like the marketing stuff or the keeping in touch with the legal regulations and things like that. And that's how things like Serenity Connected, my membership evolved because it's all about what does it mean? What are the, how do you be a business owner and combine, you know, it's the joyful adulting of business ownership. It's what my members now call it. You know, it's like, how do I bring all of myself into this business and acknowledge the fact that it is as much an internal journey to be a business owner as it is an external journey. I'm a huge fan of Brennae Brown. I love the concept of rumbling with vulnerability. And so in all of my work, that's what I try and bring through that stuff that I'm not some guru on a pedestal telling you. And yes, as part of my role, I have to have authority. Like people come for, they need me to know what I'm talking about. So there is that aspect of my work, but all of the mentoring side of my work allows me to say, look, I'm hearing the trenches with you. I'm just as fallible. I'm just as struggling. I'm just a self sabotaging, but I'm here and I'm trying and I'm doing it too. So yeah, it's bringing through that mentoring side as well as the solely legal service side has been a big part of the journey as well as that ongoing commitment to trying to build consistency in the personal development and the spiritual development part of my work. Yeah, it's so important to bring sort of those together. And I actually need to admit, I didn't know you're a mentor. I actually thought you're a lawyer. I didn't realize you had the mentoring as well. How did, you know, how did that come about? It basically came about the trigger was actually, I do project development, product development, program development, program development for the College of Law. So I'm basically an editor for them and they provide educational services for lawyers, professional development, master's level courses, all of that sort of thing. And I was editing their risk management course for new solicitors. And I'm thinking this work is freaking amazing, but not that it's boring. I don't just don't really think, you know, what a little basting fear and avoidance of liability and shutting yourself off from, you know, and I'm like, well, what could happen if I flipped it into curiosity and love and thinking about, you know, it in an imaginative way. And so I developed Castle Quest, which is my risk management program. And I was like, if you're business with a castle and it's floating out there in the air and then you were grounding it down onto solid foundations, in the caves under that castle are all the dragons. You know, they're all the worries and the fears and the what ifs and the real world dangers, but you just come down and get some conscious 'cause you don't have time to think about them right now. Right, it's so busy doing the work that it's like, oh, that could go wrong. Don't have time to think about it, don't have time. So you keep shoving all of these dragons down, but they don't go away. There's sort of this smoke rising up through your castle, making you constantly feel that you're not safe. And so you sabotage, you hold yourself back from promoting the business to its full potential. You don't invite people in 'cause it doesn't feel safe. And your subconscious is screaming at you. It's not safe, we have to stay small. So, you know, you don't launch, you don't follow up with clients, you don't put yourself out there and grow as big as your goals want you to be because it's just you dangerous. So I'm like, well, what if we got those dragons out of the cave and we looked at them with curiosity and love and we sorted out, well, you're blessed with limiting beliefs. You should fly away. But you guys, you're actually trying to warn me of things that could have consequences in the real world. And I actually need to take action on you. So it's all about doing that sorting, identifying what you need to take action on and then having the accountability. And so in trying to do this, in doing this work, I discovered more and more that a lot of it is intuitive and goes well outside the bounds of legal, which is very black and white to a large extent, but it's a holistic approach. Like these dragons have their heads, like their many-headed hydras we call them. They have their two-the-little fangs into all the different parts of our life and business and they're chomping away at us and holding us back. And so we need to kind of tame them and work with them to keep ourselves safe and to stop that constant surging undercurrent of panic and give us off the confidence that, you know, we've got this. What else is possible? Like, what can we do? Do we, and bring in the accountability and bring in the actual taking action kind of steps? And so it's kind of evolved from there that, oh, no, I've always been fascinated with workflows and systems and all that sort of stuff and safety in general. So it definitely transcends just the basic legal stuff into, you know, what am I doing and how do I do it safely? What's best practice, what feels good? Yeah, a lot of human design stuff has become waving in there as I've done, you know, all the stuff that I learn about in my own journeys, times to come out and filter into the work that we do. - Yeah, yeah, that's what I do. Now, I've just got to say something though. My little dragons family has come through and said, we're not like that. - Yeah. We like to ignore our dragons and blame them, and yeah. And you know, I love the, I love all the photos of like the, you know, boys go out and slay their dragons whereas with girls, we just want to cuddle with them and make them tell them, you know, it's all good. It's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. - Yeah, exactly. (laughing) - Yeah. - How do you make the backgrounds? - Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I've got a whole family here. Like it's just like, you know, they're always here. - And the other beauty, the other beautiful thing with my mentoring work is that it allows me to work with people worldwide, whereas my legal stuff is Australian, Australia and New Zealand. And it limits me in that section, whereas with the mentoring, I can bring in a lot more of the imagination and the metaphor and the creativity and then have lots more fun, lots more people. - But I love how even with the law stuff, you know, the contracts and all that, you're still bringing in, you know, the creativity and the fun. And it means so much. And something you said just before is that it's a story. And I just went, oh my goodness, I never thought about it that way. You know, then our contracts can be a story. And in terms of conditions, and are we? - And they're not just like, can they maybe need to be? - Yeah. - 'Cause like, okay, here's another one of my stories. Traditional contracts, I describe them as like a barbed wire fence, right? They're off in the distance. And then they're, you hope no one ever has to touch them, but they're there for that day when your client suddenly turns into a raving zombies and start trying to rush you. Which isn't gonna happen 'cause our clients love us and like it would take an apocalyptic event for that to actually happen. So, you know, we have them 'cause we're supposed to, but we don't want anything to do with them. And as a result, they are completely disconnected and I'm caring and cold and distant. Whereas when we can bring our contracts and our terms of service and all of those things into the hearing now, and make them use the same language we use in our marketing, the same language we use in our emails, make them caring, make them connected, make them compassionate, make them really, really communicate in a way that comes from the heart of our business. Then they kind of do such a good job of managing the relationship and holding the space for us to do our best work. That the kinds of conflict that that barbed wire fence is designed to protect against never happen. Because our clients feel that they can trust us. And so if they are struggling for whatever reason, they are finding their expectations aren't met, they're more inclined to come and talk to us and give us that opportunity to be generous and work with them and find a mutually acceptable win-win solution, which then turns them into raving fans so they go out and tell everybody else about you and your business grows. So your contracts actually and your legal's become a really connected, caring part of your marketing, part of your business ownership, rather than just being something that's there because it has to be. - Yeah, well, that's actually really hit home, like just hits home so much. And when you said about the contract being, you know, part of you on a story, I actually seen, like, you know, I think it was Alice in Wonderland, you've got the like the paper with links and arms. And that's how I'm actually seeing the contracts and the terms, conditions with stories. Let's come and play. And it's, yeah, it feels so-- - It can be playful. - Yeah, it takes, it's like re-schooling for homeschoolers, you know, it takes time to convince people you don't have to be cold and distant in these documents. You can let your personality shine through because that means people are more likely to read them. And if they're more likely to read and understand them, they're more likely to understand and accept the boundaries that you're putting in there. And they're more likely to engage with them and really understand what they're, what they can expect from you and what you expect from them. And so it, in actual fact, what you're doing is you are educating them to be your ideal client. And yeah, so then your contracts become like a partner in the business, they're holding that space so that you can focus on what you do best and the relationship with your client knowing that that space has been held for you by your contracts. - I'm just, look, I'm just, suddenly my creativity has just expanded now and I can actually see how, you know, and when I revisit all that, I want my contracts to be on, like my paintings have the background or whatever and they'd have the beautiful contract on there. Now I can actually see videos, my terms and conditions and my contracts as videos, me actually reading them and having a real story around it so people that don't want to read. - And actually listen. - Exactly, exactly. And it's not just like this is a movement. Like people think, oh, you're just, you're your son, area ferry person, you're off way out of the establishment. But to be honest, the entire legal system is trying to move in that direction. It's moving towards contracts that are written in by in English and that are understandable and that meet the people who use them where they need to be. So, for example, in South Africa, for the IT and her aunt, free pickers, they have contracts that are written as cartoons because these people speak different languages or they may be illiterate. They're contracts that actually communicate what needs to be communicated, but in a way that the people who are needing to use it can actually understand and engage with it rather than being something that shut them out. - Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that. The first thing I do when I draft a contract for someone, the very first thing I do is I brand it for them. I put it, it needs to be in their colours and their fonts with their logo on it. If it's not pretty, it's not worth doing. And that may, I'm such a visual person that I need all of that. I need things to be visually looking good and now I'm just, my mind has just gone crazy. I'm like, so now you can do it a cartoon. You can do this, it's not my mind. It's just going crazy. - Have fun with that. - Yeah, and when you're thinking of anything to do with a law, you're not thinking of fun, but now I am. Now I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I can bring in my spiritual side. I can bring in my fun, I can bring in my creativity. And this is all to do with the law. And I'm like, whoa, I'm just mind blown down. It's just like, far out, this is so cool. Because no matter how spiritual or creative your business is, as a business owner, you still need those boundaries and your clients need to know what those boundaries are. They still need to know what, how to pay you and what your payment terms are. They still need to know what the consequences are if they don't, they need to know if they're not happy what they can do about it. You need to manage your time. You need to have appointments, policies and rescheduling policies. But at the same time, you need to communicate important information that your clients need to know. Like, I've worked with quite a few naturopaths lately who have been saying, look, I need to tell my clients that not to set up consultations when they're gonna be in the car. Because I don't like talking to them while they're driving, it's not safe. Yeah. You know, things like, you know, makes, don't have a really highly sensitive conversation, consultation with someone when you're sitting in a cafe and people could overhear you 'cause you won't feel confident to speak clearly. These are the kinds of things that you need to cover up on. And even in terms of disclaimers, disclaimers aren't that traditional legal kind of stuff where you say, you know, nothing that goes wrong is my fault in if anything, if there are any problems it's your silly fault which you think to work with me, which boiled down is pretty much what those blanket disclaimers say. It's more like, this is the scope of my duty of care and what I'm prepared to accept responsibility for and what I'm promising to do for you. And this is all the information that you need to know so that you can give informed consent to working with me. So you can take appropriate care for your own health safety wellbeing. And so that you can enter into this relationship with open eyes, taking ownership of your own journey instead of expecting me to wave some magic wand and do everything for you, you know? - So, you're always that magic wand, didn't you? You're in the family area, is that magic wand? We all want one, but, you know, that's the biggest, one of the biggest thing that service providers that I've worked with need to say in their contract is to manage those client's expectations that, you know, if you don't do the work, you don't see the result. And no matter how creative or spiritual your business is, I bet you want to tell that to your client in some way that stops them holding you responsible for them not doing the work. - Yup, yup, and that's where I love the fact that my left and right brain work so all together because I'm gentle with my client, people that want to work with me, I'm gentle, but at the same time I go, okay, this is the way it is. - Yeah. - And I love how the fact that, you know, you're creating those contracts so that it's not a porch like there's so many people out there that push you to sign up straight away. Yet because of what you do, you're giving me, well, me and any other business person the chance to go, okay, here's my beautiful contract. Have a look through it, take your time and then get back to me. Whereas I've been on calls, okay, so you want to work with me? Great, take a deposit right now, blah, blah. And it's like, hang on, you just hang on. And that's what I love about what you do. You're allowing us to give our potential clients the space to really tap into their own cells and go, do I really want to look at that person? Is this right for me right now? And the reason you're doing this, like those people who are forcing you into a box that may not fit you, they're setting up the potential for conflict. Because once you wake up and you realize, I didn't want to be here, or this isn't what I want. This isn't the person I wanted to work with and I feel well-roaded and it could happen like I've heard people come to me months after and say, I just went into a freeze response and I'm really not happy and I've paid this person thousands of dollars and I want my money back and I'm angry about it. So you're kind of creating conflict. Whereas when you give them that opportunity to understand what they're entering into, you're creating an atmosphere of trust before the relationship even begin, you are allowing them, you're prioritizing informed consent. Yes. Which, as a matter of integrity, shouldn't be important to us as business owners, but also you're allowing them, you're filtering out the people you're not meant to work with, the ones who are going to be a conflict for you. And so by the time the people who do sign up are the ones who know that they're in the right place and that this is what they want and they're all deprived and eager to work with you. And so you're saving yourself from that kind of conflict that, yeah, you're avoiding it in the first place by just filtering them out. So I tend to believe that your legal's also work at that energetic level as a filter. That, and warning off the people who aren't meant to work with you and inviting in the ones who do. Yeah, I mean, well, that's another uh-huh. I never thought about that actually is that the legal's do actually help through that as well. And radiating that energetic, you can trust, you know, I'm trustworthy. My castle is grounded on solid foundations. It's safe to come in, I've done the work. And here, I'm sharing it with you. Anyway, wow, me and I've had so many, my mind is literally just gone well. Like, hey, ah-ha, I was like, this is the, I can't thank you enough, Michelle. Like, I really, I was the type of person that looked at my legal's and thought, oh, you know, it's really boring. And, you know, you don't really wanna do it and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, now it's like, wow, now I can bring that creativity into it, which is something that I love doing in my business and all of it bringing that creativity in it. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting excited about it and taking ownership of it because legal's aren't set in stone. Like, you don't just write them once and they're done. They need to be able to evolve and grow as your business evolves and grows. You need to be able to check in with them and make sure they're still aligned with your actual practice or they're not doing their job. Whereas if you've got one of those barbed wire fences and you don't touch it for 10 years, you know, by the time you actually have to rely on it, you'll find that there's holes all the way through it and the zombies are coming and you can't hold them back because, you know, you've been neglecting it without any maintenance for years and years. Whereas if there's something that you feel really good about and you feel really connected to and you feel that sense of ownership of and they're easy for you to engage with, then you're more likely to come back and say, "Oh, yeah, that's changed. I need to tweak that and to read through them with pleasure." Just as your clients will read through them with pleasure, I've had people who said, "Oh, you know, I've got this contract, but it just makes me feel icky every time I give it to my clients." And I feel like it's even, you know, turning them away and it's like, "Well, yeah, you know, I've had previous lawyers and I never thought I could buy the contract that I love." And, you know, that's a mission for me because I want you to love your contracts and to feel really connected to them so that you can have that ownership and keep them relevant and keep them aligned. - Yeah. - And you must have been reading my mind 'cause that was gonna be my last question was, "How often should you actually be looking at your legal?" - Yeah, so I say, you know, every board, every once a quarter is ideal, every six months, you know, I run quarterly up to your legal sessions and I just, I choose one of my legal documents and I check in with it. Also, whenever there's any major changes, so I've recently done that rebranding from my own name into Carefree Council and it's a great opportunity 'cause every time I open one of my contracts and think, right, this is the next one, I'm gonna update and put my new logo in it. It's an opportunity, read through it if it's still serving me. So anytime there's a major change in your business, but at least once a quarter, if you can make the time to just pick one of your documents and have a read through it and see if it's still serving you, yeah, it's not too onerous an obligation but it still keeps it top of your mind to come back to it on a regular basis. - I love that. - Love it at the same time, I always say, don't get overwhelmed and panic about this stuff because it's not like if you don't do it that some nuclear bomb is suddenly gonna explode your business, right? - Yeah. - It's more likely that that sense of lack of safety will simmer and you'll pull yourself back and back and back. So if you're finding yourself a plateaued and what's, what's stopping me then refreshing illegals is another thing that can sort of give you that confidence to get back out there. - Oh, I love this conversation. I've loved it so much. - Okay. - Me too. - Yeah, I can't thank you enough. It really has changed my perception of my legal. It's like really has and I really, really appreciate it. And for anyone watching this video, check out the description 'cause I've actually got in there the links to see where Michelle is, you know, her website, no Facebook and everything. So please go and check her out because I just, you know, I think if you can make the legals actually something that you wanna look at, something that you wanna create, I think that's just absolutely terrific. So I thank you again, Michelle. I really appreciate how I'm. - Yeah, you're very, very welcome. And not just the legals in the traditional sense, but also your identity as a business owner. Like what business ownership means to you, what best practice means to you, even if you're in a completely unregulated industry. Your commitment to best practice and understanding what's important to you as a business owner and what it means for you to be a business owner with integrity is your first level of protection. I always say your first level of protection is your commitment to best practice. Your second level is your contracts and your legals and your solid foundations. And then things like your insurance and the stuff everyone goes for first is actually your backup safety net that catches you if everything else fails. - Yeah, love it. - Love it. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thank you. It's been so much fun. - It has. And again, check out the description for Michelle 'cause yeah, just go and check her out. And don't forget to subscribe to my channel 'cause I am just loving these conversations and having so much more. Are you interested in learning how to receive, trust, and believe your intuition so that you can use it within your business? Click the link in the description to book in a free connection call and let's chat about how we can work together. Thank you for listening to Tuesday Talks with Darlene. 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