In this episode of The Verdict is Marketing, host Kim Sailer interviews Cathi Marcus, a certified professional life and business coach, who discusses strategies for managing stress, setting authentic priorities, and maintaining well-being in high-pressure environments like law. Listeners will gain insights into self-awareness, mindfulness, and how to align personal priorities with professional demands without sacrificing mental health.
Resources:
Learn more about Cathi Marcus – https://www.lawbard.com/about-lawbard/
Transcript
Kim: Welcome to today’s episode of the Verdict is Marketing, the podcast of all things legal marketing and more.
Kim: If you’ve ever felt like the weight of expectations and stress is pulling you in every direction, this is the conversation you need. We’re diving deep into setting priorities and aligning them with your values. Uncovering the hidden internal stressors that may be holding you back and exploring practical strategies to reset, refocus, and reclaim control, even in high-pressure environments like law. Stick around for actual insights, powerful mind shifts, and inspiration to help you manage stress, not just during the holidays but all year long.
Kim: You don’t want to miss this. I’m your host, Kim Sailer, founder of LawBARD. Our guest today is certified professional life and business coach Cathi Marcus. Cathi is a frequent contributor to LawBARD and I asked her here today to discuss setting priorities and expectations. Welcome to the show, Cathi.
Cathi: Hi, Kim, I’m so happy to be here, especially with you.
Cathi Marcus – Certified Professional Life & Business Coach
Kim: Ah, excellent. So before we dive in, I want to share a little bit about you. Cathi Marcus is a published author, certified coach, and an expert in human design and potential with an award winning career in healthcare. Having overcome multiple addictions and conquered both internal struggles and a literal 14,000 foot mountain, Cathi is a beacon of transformation and empowerment. Known for her guru thinker insights and science backed coaching, she helps individuals transcend limiting beliefs, unlock creativity, and embrace authentic, abundant living. Through her talks, workshops, and coaching, Cathi inspires others to shift from insecurity to resilience and scarcity to abundance, embodying the transformation Power of self love and purpose.
Kim: Cathi, did I miss anything?
Cathi: You know, I’m listening to it and going, okay, and you know what, beyond all of that, I’m a human being doing the human things. And I, I know all about all the stresses that your audience faces, I think most important is for them to know not only did I have 2 decades in corporate healthcare, but I also spend a lot of time in the legal sector. Uh, so I worked for an AV firm. I know about the regulations. I know about the cultures. I know about the expectations. I know about the hours. I know about all the stresses, the clients, their personalities, the co workers, their personalities, need I go on, that your audience faces day in and day out. And, at the same time, with all of the so called credentials that I have, I think the greatest credentials that I have are the same credentials that your audience has, because when it comes to human design and human potential, we’re all created in the same way.
Cathi: We all have certain capacities that we may not be aware of. We all have things that. block us from receiving the abundant energy that’s available to all of us that will improve all areas of our lives. And so, like, what I really love to talk about is how we are the same and not so different.
The Challenge of Authentic Priorities
Kim: Excellent. So when we talk about, you know, abundance, or we talk about all these things, priorities and expectations. Why are setting priorities so challenging, especially for attorneys or professionals in high stress pressure environments?
Cathi: Well, I, the 1st thing that comes to mind for me, Kim, is when we have these priorities, the question that come up inside of me is like, whose priorities are they? Are they really your priorities? Or are they the priorities of the firm that you work for? Or are they the priorities of say, your parents when and how they raised you? The environment that we work in? The culture that we work in? It’s very interesting. Expectations? Priorities? Goals? A lot of times what I do when I work with clients is I help them to get clear on whose priorities are we talking about? Whose expectations are we talking about? Whose goals? And would you like to revisit maybe some of those things to see where your truth is? Regarding those things and how you can continue to produce what you need to produce for the firm you work for without leaving yourself.
Kim: Excellent. And then, so how can an individual identify if their expectation is realistic or is it contributing to their stress and all the anxiety?
Cathi: So, I might just go into a little different terminology there and, like, even just move out of the word expectation and just say, you know, individuals have the capacity to get connected to their, their own energy, their own bodily energy, their own mental energy, their thought energy, their feeling energy. We are designed with this capacity, but most people are not really connected to themselves. They are in survival mode. They’re in high stress mode. They don’t know how to, and they haven’t been taught to, take exquisite care of themselves. They’ve been taught to and trained to take exquisite care of everybody else to please the world, to please others and and this is where I talk about us leaving ourselves. You know, there’s just certain needs that we have to have met as human beings to be able to function optimally, right? We need rest. We need fun. We need to be aligned with our truth. And so, again, I think what’s really important for people to get connected with is themselves in order to get connected with what their priorities are.
Understanding Internal Stressors
Kim: Gotcha. So, what are some common, internal stressors that an attorney may experience and how can they identify or address them? Like, how do they know?
Cathi: Yeah, so I, I think again, I would say, let’s not even just talk about attorneys because attorneys are human beings. And attorneys are like a lot of other professionals. I worked in the corporate environment in pharmaceuticals. There’s physicians. I work with a lot of CEOs, a lot of different professionals in a lot of different sectors. And even though they don’t have the exact same stressors attorneys face, human beings pretty much have the same stressors. We’re all facing a lot of the same stressors. You know, am I doing what my boss wants me to do? Is my boss happy with me? Am I producing enough? Are my customers happy with me? Am I, Working within the confines of the regulations and the guidelines, or am I stepping outside of those things, you know? So there’s a lot of legality. There’s HR stuff. There’s expectations from administration or management or our bosses we all face these stressors. So and how they show up internally.. Well, first of all, what I’ll what I’ll say is physical issues. I mean if people are experiencing physical issues like constant migraines or stomach aches or anxiety or insomnia, just to name a few. A lot of times this is not just a change in your hormones, you know, a lot of times this is what I, what I like to, I like to give visualizations. It’s almost like, imagine, a cup of water, but it’s just like overflowing and now that water is getting all over your desk and it’s, you know, corrupting everything on the desk and the papers and it’s just a mess. So we are like that container. You know, we can only take so much stress. And then it just starts to overflow and that’s when we become really overwhelmed. That’s where we have a lot of anxiety. That’s when we start to experience not just physical problems, but relationship problems uh car accidents, medical crises. This is, this is where that all starts to bubble up when we’ve just, we’ve got too much stress going on and we need to find a way to rein that in.
The Power of Self-Awareness
Kim: I completely agree with those. What role does self awareness play in managing stress effectively?
Cathi: So what a great question. Self awareness plays a role in everything. It is the deal. I mean, I’m getting ready to write a book called The Observer Effect or something along those lines, helping people to understand a concept from quantum physics, which is really that we all are meant to be observers of the experience that we go through. We’re not meant to get so attached to what’s happening in the experience, but without self awareness, it’s impossible not to get attached. So, I’ve worked with my clients consistently. They need to be committed with consistency to developing a lifestyle of becoming aware of what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I believing? What am I emoting? What am I visualizing? It doesn’t matter. Whatever’s authentically moving through their field of awareness, becoming aware of it, while at the same time, recognizing that nothing in that field needs to be fixed, healed, or changed. It only needs to be accepted without judgment. It needs to be embraced. But most people, including myself, were never taught or given the skills or the, made aware of the fact, that we’re designed in a way to be able to digest experiences. Most of us are trying to control the experiences.
Mindfulness and Stress Management Techniques
Kim: Very true. Can you explain the importance of mindfulness or other stress management techniques in maintaining a healthy well being?
Cathi: Yes. So I love, I love to talk about this as well, because there are so many different, I would say well intentioned practitioners out there teaching all sorts of methods, methodologies and processes and you know, this course and that course, you know, in order to attain this peace inside. And what I love to tell my clients and audiences I speak to is that you are designed to live from a meditative state. You are actually in meditation all the time, but you don’t know it because you’re so, your nervous system is so overwhelmed with stress and you don’t know how to utilize your awareness to accept and digest things. You’re utilizing your awareness to judge and dissect and analyze and try to control things. Very different approaches to life. It takes some time to adjust to these different perspectives and approaches, which is where, you know, people, you know, what I just need to say, what I say is just be committed with consistency to becoming aware of certain things. And one of the things would be like relaxing into just the awareness of your breath. When you come back to your breath and you just pay attention to the in breath and the out breath, you just let everything go. Everything else go. You fall into your natural state, which is what people call meditation. They say we need to sit to meditate for an hour or two hours. And so the world is trying to meditate for an hour here or an hour there, and then they’re stressing out because they didn’t meditate and now they’re beating themselves up ’cause they didn’t meditate enough. Now they’re adding stress. Or, or when they’re in meditation, they’re like, oh, I’m having all these thoughts. I shouldn’t have any thoughts. So they start trying to stop the thoughts, which creates more stress. See, this is the funny part about the whole world of mindfulness and meditation. It’s all about the approach. So what I help people to do is become aware of everything that’s in their field of awareness And learn how to embrace and accept it all. And when you don’t go to war with anything that’s happening inside of you, what’s really fascinating and amazing and terrific is you just fall into your natural meditative state. And so I work with people to create a life that’s based on knowing – I can always be in meditation. I don’t need to sit for meditation. I can live from meditation.
Self-Care: More Than Just a Buzzword
Kim: Very interesting. What role does like self care play in reducing stress or move or even from a work perspective improving productivity?
Cathi: Yeah. So for me, you know, there is an energy, a consciousness that pervades everything in the universe. Everybody has different names for this universal energy, but I like to think of it as love. That’s how I like to think about the energy. You know that this energy is always loving us exactly as we are. And if we want to match the energy of that field, then doesn’t it make sense for us to also love ourselves exactly as we are. So self care and self love is paramount. In order to really flow and connect with and align with the abundant energy that you are. And that’s going to look different for different people. What does it look like? You know, I like to say, like, imagine somebody in your life that has loved you so much that you just feel so embraced and accepted and understood and attended to in their company. You know, maybe you have somebody like that, and then imagine turning that same type of care towards yourself. A lot of people, when they hear self care, will think about getting a manicure, or going for a massage, you know? And that is self care too, or eating the right food, you know, eating foods that are good for your body, or drinking a lot of water, or breathing in clean air. I mean, all of these things are relevant, but I just want to add in that self care must include the way we treat ourselves in addition to The caring things that we might offer our body, minds or spirits.
Practical Advice for the Overwhelmed Professional
Kim: That’s a really great point. What advice would you give to somebody who feels overwhelmed and unsure how to prioritize or tackle their stress?
Cathi: So, for someone who feels unsure, I would, first of all, reassure them – welcome to my club. Welcome to the club.
Kim: Welcome to the club.
Cathi: Glad to have you take a seat amongst the other 8 billion people on the planet, right?
Kim: Yep. You’re not alone.
Cathi: I would, right. I really would want to stress. That’s so normal. You know, human beings on this planet at this time, it can be really, really overwhelming. And if we’re carrying around a lot of the trauma from our childhood, because we haven’t yet known how to process it integrated. Integrated is the word I would use. We’re not, we don’t need to go analyze it, fix it. We can’t change it. But how do we integrate it? So that we can be more present in the moment now and be able to handle the challenges that come before us. So I would just say, you know, welcome to the club, but if you’re even having these questions right now, it seems that you might be ready to do life differently. You might be ready to approach yourself differently, to acknowledge certain truths inside of you that you’ve been denying or abandoning in order to be the person the world has expected you to be. Maybe it’s a time in your life right now where you’re like, I want to come home to me. I want to be able to make a great living. I want to be able to do great service in the world, but I don’t want to abandon myself to do it.
Shifting Mindsets: A Path to Empowerment
Kim: Yeah. Good. Very good points. ,What is one simple mindset shift people can make to start feeling more empowered in control of their priorities?
Cathi: So more empowered and controlled of their priorities. Well, first of all, let’s go back to like setting the priorities. What I want to say to your audience is that our priorities change over our life. You know, somebody pointed that out to me and I was like, huh, let me really think about that. You know, she was like, what are your priorities right now in your life? Like right now, my child’s getting ready to go to college. I’ve shifted, you know, I’m trying to build this different career for myself. I, hurt my back. I’ve been trying to just, you know, recover from the back injury. So, those have been my priorities right now and what I want the audience to know is that the priorities can and do shift. What was important to you at 20 is not the same thing as 30, 40 or 50. So, first of all, that’s something that, you know, I’ll coach into with my clients is just, let’s, let’s have a session and just talk about your priorities. What are your priorities? Where are you investing your time and your energy? And maybe where are you investing it that it’s depleting you instead of offering you more energy.
Kim: Absolutely. I agree with those too. What else? Are there any things you want to add or anything that we haven’t talked about that you want to make sure we mention?
Cathi: You know, there’s so much that we could talk about, but I like to be the person, I want to be the person that your audience relates to and also to make things very simple for them. And I just want them to know that I am them. You know that there hasn’t been a person that I haven’t met, that I haven’t been able to find myself in them and specifically in corporate, like corporate stress of downsizing. I mean, I’ve been through everything. Or, you know, you’re going to get the call on Thursday and find out who’s still part of the company and who’s not, or you’re walking into a facility and there are regulations and did you cross a line or not cross it? Could you get fired? I mean, as an attorney, the billable hours and making sure you document things and, you know, do I want to give up my Saturdays and my Sundays to earn billable hours to become a partner? I mean, there’s so many different aspects to it. So, you know, I, the first thing I want the audience to know is that I relate to and understand the stresses that they’re going through. A lot of the stresses too.
Cathi: I just want to talk about the word stress for a second. What is stress and where does stress come from? You know, there is a way to live with the observer, like I talked about before, witness consciousness, living from your witness, living from your observer without judgment, where you can actually be in that meditative state of peace throughout the day, no matter what’s happening. But then we hear this word stress. So what is stress? For me, there are external stresses and then there’s internal stresses. The external stresses are unexpected things you know that happen that you can’t control that actually impact your environment or impact your body or impact your children. And these are real stresses, right? All of a sudden the alarm goes off at school and they go on shutdown and you get the call and your child’s in the school and you don’t know what’s happening. Okay. But then there’s the internal stresses of how I talk to myself, what I expect of myself, what I believe about myself or the world, you know, this unexpected charge comes in and then I have issues around money because my mother was the child of a gambler. And so she was always like, what if, what if, what if? And then that got incorporated into me. And then this unexpected charge happens and all this fear comes up in me. And then there’s this belief I’m going to be homeless. Okay. Which sounds so far fetched, but I bet people who are listening right now, completely relate to what I’m talking about, because that’s, that’s what goes on internally is depending on what we’ve been through as kids. And you know this from the process that I take people through, Kim, with, you know, when you look at your timeline and the events, just shaping events of your life, especially the ones that were really hard to get through and traumatic. Most people don’t know how to integrate those experiences. There are still walking around today 40 years later, 50 years later, with the little kid in them that went through those experiences that feels powerless and unsafe and ugly and unworthy and not good enough, hiding under the facade of attorney of the facade of corporate CEO, dean of a college, you name it. I was hiding under that facade. I looked really professional and awesome on the outside and the minute I had a medical crisis from all of the stress and I was now on company leave and I was with myself, I was, I was so terrified. I was put in touch with the reality that I was like this little kid inside that didn’t know if I was good enough, that felt alone, that felt scared, that felt angry. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was actually the so called bottom of my life was the beginning of the best phase of my life. And so I want the people in your audience to know that that’s, these are the potentials and the possibilities that can be seized when you have the right guide to help you navigate the challenges in front of you.
Kim: Cathi, I think definitely a lot of our listeners can relate to what you said and, could, greatly benefit, from what’s was said today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, your practical strategies for managing stress and setting priorities. Your advice is a reminder that even in high pressure careers, we can find balance and fulfillment and purpose.
Kim: Again, thank you to all our listeners, you can find a full transcript of the podcast on LawBARD.com. Thanks again for listening. Please check the show notes for how to reach Cathi. Feel free to drop me a line at Kim@Lawbard.com or visit us at LawBARD. com. Until the next time, the verdict is marketing is adjourned.
