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What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team and systems, mastering money issues, and more; then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth-generating law firm? That’s what we do each week on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hosted by Davina Frederick, founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer –– every episode is an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve (and will pay you on time), and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. The goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund, and still have time to enjoy, the lifestyle of your dreams.
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers? Ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.
Intro:Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now, here's Devina.
Davina:Hi. Welcome back to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And my guest today is Jennifer Gardner. Jennifer Gardner is a Los Angeles based trial lawyer, persuasive communications educator and part time administrative law judge.
Davina:She specializes in strategic, empathetic and persuasive communication with a focus on high performers in various settings. When she is not lawyering, she educates high performing leaders on how to grow their executive presence and confidence using persuasive communication strategies through her program, the art of influence and the power lab and for various continuing legal education providers. She also consults with lawyers on strategic messaging for their cases and helps them with their courtroom presence. Jennifer's career spans entertainment litigation, serious criminal disputes, and business and real estate disputes. She is trained at the trial lawyers college, the Jerry Spence method, and the Wharton School.
Davina:So please help me welcome Jennifer Gardner to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. So hi, Jennifer. Welcome. I'm so excited that you're here.
Jennifer:I'm really happy to be here. Thank you so much.
Davina:Good. Good. We're we have a lot to talk about because you and I were already just talking away like magpies. So I I don't wanna leave our audience out. I wanna include them in the conversation because you were telling me that you have been practicing for how long?
Davina:How long have you been a lawyer?
Speaker 3:I think I've actually been a lawyer. Let's see. I was admitted to the bar in California in 1987. And honestly, the math terrifies me because when I start to do the math and I realize how long it's been, it's like, oh, my god. I'm that old.
Speaker 3:I've been doing this that long. But I was admitted in 1987. So what is that 30
Davina:some odd years. And I've been
Speaker 3:in my, I've had my own practice for 32 that much. I know for sure. 30. I started my own
Davina:practice for 32 years. Yeah. So tell me, give me a little bit about so where did you go to law school and kinda how did did you always sort of know you wanted to be a lawyer and did that or or was that something that evolved?
Speaker 3:It evolved. I mean, I was heavily directed by my parents. You know, my my father was, a professional and believed in the importance of being able to work for yourself. My mother was, you don't ever wanna be dependent on a man for money. You wanna have your freedom, and you do that.
Speaker 3:I love her all day. Stuff. She's she's an amazing woman. She's still alive, 87 years old. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're very close. And so she drilled that into my head. I was the first female in my family, I believe, to graduate with a professional degree. I think my aunt followed shortly after me or right before me with a degree in art history and went on to get a PhD. But we came from family that was, you know, they they did things that weren't intellectual, but they valued education.
Speaker 3:So they pushed us in that direction. So I had the freedom to become any kind of lawyer I wanted to be, and I had other interests. And I was very frustrated that I couldn't pursue those interests. So one of the reasons why I chose self employment was so that I would give myself flexibility, the gift of flexibility and time to be able to explore other things, to pursue what made me curious.
Davina:Yeah. Yeah. So you, had your own practice for 32 years. How did that did you go immediately out of law school and start your practice, or did you work for some other people first? Or what did you do?
Speaker 3:I worked for some other people first, and, I had, I was in 3 firms in 5 years. I had one horrific experience, one excellent experience, and then the firm suddenly dissolved, because of an illness and the death of one of the major partners. And then the other one was there were 3. 1 was appointed to the bench, One died waiting for his heart, bypass surgery. And the third one said, I'm done.
Speaker 3:I'm out of here. And so they dissolved the firm, and I had to find a job. So I found another job. I actually liked that job a lot, but I was, my father passed away. And after he passed away, I I just needed to take a breath, and I didn't want to be working these insane hours, for this.
Speaker 3:And it was a plum job, and I was learning so much. And I look back now, and I realize I should have stayed longer because there's some training I would have gotten that I really, I didn't get the benefit of, and I regret it in hindsight. But I was just, I was exhausted. It was a difficult illness. I was very close to my dad.
Speaker 3:And, and then I I and I was unhappy being a lawyer because I felt like it really wasn't truly my idea. I had other things I wanted to explore. And so I decided, you know what I'm gonna see? Is it the practice of law itself that I really don't like? Or is it working in a firm?
Speaker 3:So I figured, well, I'm gonna try it on my own and see what happens.
Davina:Yeah. And so you went out on your own. And was it you by yourself or did you have anybody with you or what was the plan?
Speaker 3:Well, I had one of the partners well, excuse me, he think he was a senior associate who wanted to be a partner at that firm. I don't think he was quite a partner yet. But anyway, he said, I'm going out on my own. Want to come with me? I was like, sure.
Speaker 3:And that's how it worked. And we were together for two and a half, three years, and then we split up. I was alone for a while. And then I formed a firm that lasted for 10 years with my best friend from law school. Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:In the very first hour, the very first day of law school. Her name is Hillary Booth, and I'm now have counseled to her firm. But we practice together for 10 years. And then we split because I had entrepreneurial interests I wanted to pursue and she wanted to build a different kind of practice. And she's done an amazing job, an amazing job building.
Davina:I also went into a partnership with one of my friends from law school. And so I I it was a wonderful experience. And but, but we wound up parting ways and we're still for, I just talked to her like 2 days ago. We're still great friends. So it's really wonderful to have that.
Davina:Those people that we trauma bond. So your you were tell me about your experience in I wanna get into what you're doing now, but I just wanna kind of wrap up with like your experience in being a law firm owner. You you did that for a very long time. What did you sort of love about it? And what is it that you maybe you wish you had done differently?
Speaker 3:I'm still doing it. What I wish I had done differently, kind of did not exist when I was really when I really, really needed it. Like, I was listening to your podcast, and I recall you talking about how when you started the the coaches, there weren't as many law firm business coaches as there are today. Right? And the the ones that did exist were working in a bigger firm, context.
Speaker 3:Right? And, in 1992, when I was a young female lawyer with the nerve to start her own firm, people would look at me and not take me seriously quite frankly. And so I really struggled for years with this, this ingenue lawyer image that other people projected onto me. And there's simply, there wasn't affordable, education out there to help me build a practice. I, like you, I was listening to your podcast, went to a lot of networking events and was roped into all kinds of responsibilities that sucked up a lot of my time did not necessarily lead to any paying business.
Speaker 3:But I didn't know what else to do. You know, that was the days before the Internet where it was yellow pages ads for 1,000 of dollars, bus benches, supermarket advertising, little placards, right, direct mail pieces, Christmas cards, and that was it. There was no Facebook. There was no Google, no Yelp, no nothing.
Davina:I do think the Internet and social media have been such a great equalizer for solo lawyers and small firms. I know, you know, in a big firm environment, a big law environment, I did work in a big firm before I became a lawyer. And there is a perception of solo lawyers that is not kind. It is this idea that if you're practicing solo, it's because you can't get a job in this big, wonderful firm. And one of the things I'm super excited and thrilled to see is how over the last decade or 2 decades, we're seeing more people start their own businesses of all kinds of diversities and backgrounds, women, people of color starting their firms and growing successful law firms.
Davina:Because it used to be the old white guys place. And, and their idea of diversity finally in the eighties was to start hiring women and sort of promoting women. But you wouldn't see you wouldn't see 2 women coming out of law school starting a firm and growing that firm and hiring people underneath it. You know? And and and was the as I talked about the podcast, that was one of the things, even when I started my firm, 2007 is that I looked around and there weren't really the coaching options were for these sort of large law firms that could afford, you know, $5,000 a month or $10,000 a month or whatever it was, and have their different coaches and I mean, their different attorneys involved.
Davina:So we've definitely seen a lot of changes, which as a woman, I'm thrilled to see, you know, I'm thrilled to see that so many women having those opportunities that maybe you and I was a different time and place, you know. So you are now you've made the switch at one at some point to leaving, you know, kind of that day to day grind of sort of growing the big firm, and you're in enough counsel kind of role now. What made you sort of change that? Because I know you're doing something else.
Speaker 3:Okay. So well, I'm I'm doing 2 things. So I still have my own law practice, which is Gardner and Associates. Okay. On my on the bigger cases, I associate in my ex partner's firm so that I have the benefit of the support of her team.
Speaker 3:And she has really well trained, wonderful people that support me on the larger matters. But I really like to have a mix of a few larger complex meaty matters, which are, like, higher building matters, and then smaller troubleshooting, problem solving, smaller cases where I'm, I'm a 100% hands on with the assistance of a paralegal. That's, like, the right mix for me because that enables me to generate enough income so that I can pursue other interests. And my other interest is really my passion and and also creative out outlet. I mean, the law practice almost gives me an opportunity to practice what I do in my spare time, which is study influence and persuasion and educate people on how to be influential and persuasion and magnetic and acquire certain soft skills that were not taught in law school and in most in most universities and even graduate programs, for example.
Davina:Right. Right. Yeah. You it's exciting to hear too when you look at somebody who's had, you know, who's had a long career. Like, people are always shocked when they hear how many careers I've had, how many different types of careers, you know, marketing, attorney, and coaching.
Davina:And I'm looking ahead at the next thing too. You know? And so I think there's a there's the it's wonderful for people to see that because I think one of the things that keeps a lot of women stuck is they think to themselves, well, I've chosen this path and so therefore this must be my path. And they don't realize that life is long, and you're going to change and your interests are going to change. And some you're going to reach a point where you've like been there done that.
Davina:What's next that can be challenging and interesting for me. And so I love that you kind of it's a full circle sort of thing where you you, you did follow this career and you did all the things in this career working for firms, starting your own firm. And now you have a wonderful arrangement where you're still able to practice, but you're also able to pursue, you know, things now that you're really know who Jennifer is and what Jennifer wants to do, you know, as opposed to when you were younger, people are going, you're going into law. You know? Yeah.
Davina:Yeah, or nothing. So so tell me about your other business and what what made you decide that this was something that you were passionate about and wanted to pursue and educate people about?
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, it it's kind of a long story. So, if I get too long winded, feel free to interrupt me. I came into my own practice. I got the worst cases, like, I used to always tell people that no sane lawyer would take.
Speaker 3:They came to me. Right? So the people that I know who are mostly men who have their own practices would send me the crazy clients they just didn't want to deal with, and I would take the cases because I I needed business. I had no trust fund. Right?
Speaker 3:I had no no savings. I had a phone. I had a fax machine. I had a computer, and I had, my wits about me, and I had a credit card. And I went and I signed up for office space at the middle of Century City in Los Angeles, which is, a nice hub, like a downtown on the west side of this sprawling mechatropolis that I that I live in, and I just, like, suited up and showed up every single day.
Speaker 3:And slowly, the business started coming in. I go to these networking events, and I feel like I was wasting my time because I go there and nobody I felt really took me seriously. Right? So anyway, needless to say, I got a lot of crazy clients who did not want to settle their cases. They wanted a trial come hell or high water, and I found myself in trial having no idea how to try a case.
Speaker 3:No training, no mentorship, no idea how to do it. And then much to my surprise, I won case after case after case after case. And I thought I started thinking, this is really this is really crazy. What am I doing? Right?
Speaker 3:It felt it felt I I started to realize what I was doing, which was that I was really getting into my clients' heads. I was really tapping into their emotions and the emotional dynamics of the parties, and I was putting together the story of what happened. I've always been a storyteller. I've always loved to tell stories, to listen to other storytellers. My mother will tell you I was telling stories since I was born.
Speaker 3:And, I've always had a sense of, like, what buttons to push to embellish or to make something sound worse or dramatic, whatever. So I applied that to my cases. And and I and okay. So my clients were more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3:But I was winning case after case, and it was a total mystery to me. So I started getting, well, after 20 years, I decided it was time to get some real training. And also, I was also practicing criminal defense, private criminal defense, and, winning those cases as well. Like, I did did phenomenal, but I just couldn't run. I gave that up because I couldn't run a civil and a criminal calendar plus the hearing officer.
Speaker 3:Right? It was just too much. It was too much stress, and it was it was exhausting me. I was on the verge of burnout, plus criminal cases are even more emotional than civil ones. I thought it would wouldn't be that way.
Speaker 3:Well, surprise. It's they're very, very emotional. Right. So, I I went I signed up for the Jerry Spence's, Trial Lawyers College. I went to some regionals.
Speaker 3:I eventually graduated from there, and I came out of there about I guess it was in 2016 with my my graduate degree and a lot of a lot of education. And I felt like it still wasn't enough. I felt like I still wasn't when I go into, a courtroom as comfortable there as I wanted to be when it came to how I spoke. And so I just started diving deeper and deeper and deeper. I studied Sanford Meisner acting.
Speaker 3:I started studying, the neuroscience of persuasion. I've taken courses on influence and persuasion at Wharton. I'm going back for more this fall. I have studied advanced trial skills through now the Jerry Spence method, and I practiced with a lot of lawyers every month every month, getting on my feet and speaking and speaking and speaking and, you know, contemporary contemporaneously working my cases, working their cases, And, and then just being on a transformational path, I was studying things like interspecies communication, right? I mean, I have this, like, curiosity for what it takes to be a compelling speaker.
Speaker 3:Now having said that, I still don't think I'm the most compelling speaker in the world, but I have a clue and I have a toolkit, and I'm not afraid to get up there and take the fire and make the mistakes and, do the best that I can do. And so that led me to wanna educate other people to keep to to basically spread the word about what it was I had learned that was working so well for me. It works for me when I'm selling myself to a potential client. It works for me when I get asked to speak and paid to speak on this very topic. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It works for me in every aspect of the cases that I handle in business and in line or in front of the cashier at the grocery store. I mean, these techniques are communication techniques. The information is out there, but there's a lot of it. There's a lot of research that's constantly being updated, and it's it's a lot to take in. Right?
Speaker 3:So, that's my passion is taking all that in researching that, synthesizing that and and then finding creative ways to educate other people about what I've learned.
Davina:Yeah, let me ask you, I have so many questions. The first question, though, is I want to talk about the the level of anxiety you have, because I remember the first time going into a courtroom, and I remember being an intern, and I had just started as an intern. And the other, you know, people were there and the judge was there and the courtroom was empty except for some lawyers and interns and the judge. And the judge wanted me to get up and give an impromptu like closing or something. And I was like, what I didn't.
Davina:I absolutely refused. I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no other, there's nothing. I don't even know what I'm like, I'm just in law school, I don't even know what I'm doing. Right.
Davina:And, and that let you know, eventually I wound up and try some cases of being in the courtroom. And I enjoyed it when I enjoyed it. But I also had so much anxiety around it, that it took away from sort of, I was good at it. But it caused me so much anxiety, it didn't feel good, right. And I think that happens with a lot of lawyers.
Davina:And I know, we're talking to women lawyers, but I talked to a lot of women lawyers who say, you know, I'm not I don't want to do litigation, because I'm an introvert. And I don't want to be, I just don't want to do that. I want to do transactional work. And I my the clients that make the most money are litigators. And I think there's a lot of women who sort of give up on that, that way of making money because of they feel intimidated with sort of getting up in that courtroom.
Davina:And being at, at times the only voice that people are hearing. Did you have those feelings when you first started kind of going in the courtroom, and you didn't really know you didn't have any training? And and just always trying to sort of how do I perfect this and get better at it so I don't embarrass myself in public.
Speaker 3:I had it then and I still have it. And I I think that the the best trial lawyers, if they're completely honest with themselves and with other people, will tell you they're terrified most of the time.
Davina:That's so interesting. That's so interesting. Because, you know, I think there's some people that it sort of comes naturally to. But maybe that's when they have a Hollywood script. And they get to be on a show like LA Law or Suits or Ally McNeil.
Davina:I think there's a perception that people have that that all these eloquent speeches that they see from TV lawyers are think this is how I'm supposed to be. So this is the standard. And they don't realize there's a Hollywood scriptwriter behind that. Exactly. And so it makes it more intimidating to think, oh, because real court is you're schlepping in a bunch of boxes.
Davina:You never see that on TV court where they have their little yellow legal pad. And that's it. But real court, you're schlepping in boxes of stuff, and you gotta keep it all straight. And you've gotta make your arguments. You gotta do it a certain way.
Davina:And there are so many rules. So there's so much to it that I think can be very intimidating. And it sounds like what you're doing is really helping people to develop techniques, whether they're speaking in a courtroom or in any situation, to bring down that intimidation factor for them. Right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I am demystifying what it takes to be a charismatic magnetic speaker who inspires people to do what they want them to do, what they ask them to do. Mhmm. And that takes a skill set, which social scientists and neuroscientists and storytellers have studied and broken down, and and there's a science and there's an art to it. And that is what I'm committed to studying, practicing, and teaching because as lawyers, we're taught to argue and advocate not to persuade.
Speaker 3:We don't learn how to persuade. We don't we're taught to zealously represent clients, but we don't see ourselves as leaders. And there are many perspective shifts that I think we need to make, that the profession needs to make to sort of see our role in a different way so that we're more effective when we're advocating for humans, which is what we're always doing. Even if it's an enterprise, that enterprise is comprised of humans. There's always a human story at the center of all of this.
Davina:So And I think advocating for ourselves as well, like, as as just on a base level, like, how do we what if we could be better advocates for ourselves in all kinds of situations like you, like you mentioned, you know, there are all kinds of situations that you use your persuasive powers and not in a have you had anybody tell you, well, I
Speaker 3:don't wanna
Davina:manipulate somebody. Have you had the negative, of that thrown back at you to say, well, you know, I I don't wanna be persuasive because that's manipulative. What do you Oh.
Speaker 3:What do you think about that? I well, I think there's such a thing as dark psychology, and, there are people who gaslight. There are people who are sociopathic, who are completely self centered. I don't see being persuasive and influential as necessarily being a bad thing, especially if you're advocating for justice, right, for your client. Okay?
Speaker 3:So there is such a thing as dark psychology, and it's some of these things that you do when you're being influential and persuasive that are taken to an extreme for improper ends. And I'm, I'm so not about that. But that is a major subconscious objection that a lot of people have to the idea that they are powerful, that they can be powerful, that they can get up there, and they have the right to assert themselves. There's this cultural, bias. It's sort of unspoken that people who are powerful and people who own their right to power are manipulative, selfish, cruel, unethical, dishonest, all the things all the things that, you know, culturally, we don't like.
Speaker 3:Right? Bad things. And, once you understand that you're not those things, but those the idea of those things is what's stopping you from realizing your full potential, then it becomes easier to dismantle that. It becomes easier to dismantle the limiting beliefs. I hate to use a really cliche term, but it really is a limiting belief that most people don't know that they have.
Davina:Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, since our audience is made up largely of women, I, I also think that in our culture, women in particular, have to be pleasing, have to be diplomatic, have to be tactful, and all of those things. And so there's this idea that if we are stepping into our full power and saying things that are other people aren't going to like or controversial or whatever, that we are not being pleasing, We are not being you know, there's it's the the bitch thing, you know, and, and so tools like this, I think, are really powerful in helping you find ways to deal with those that confrontation when you are expressing your, your argument, your views, your your, your point of view in the world, there's probably a lot in this kind of training that really helps you learn how to take those that feedback and turn it around. Right?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes. Absolutely. You're so spot on with everything that you just said. I it's really, really difficult for women, especially The the more we assert ourselves, the angrier the response, the more opposition we face. The more competent we seem, the angrier, the opposition can be to us.
Speaker 3:Mary Beard wrote an incredible book on this, which I'd like people to, look up if they wanna read more about it, this particular phenomenon of women and power. I think, though, that that things are starting to shift. I mean, look, we have a a woman running for president and she's doing well in a lot of the polls. We also have her opponent who who he was interviewed on the Lex Fridman podcast and they published that podcast this week. I don't know if you've heard it yet, but it was fascinating because he talks about how you can't care about what people are gonna say about you.
Speaker 3:You're gonna trigger people. You just have to, like, go out and speak to as many people as you can. Get on as many platforms as you can and not care what the other people say. But you see, women are not socialized to think like that, and I happen to think that that is a huge part of his success. He fascinates me without saying who I'm voting for.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying, I watch these. I listen and I watch who's saying what with utter fascination. And, because why have they captivated the public's attention? And how are they doing? How are they fairing?
Speaker 3:How are people how are they landing with people? I mean, these are the ultimate power players. Right? They're going for the ultimate powerful big job running the United States. And you can bet that they have the most talented coaches and speech writers and consultants in the country backing them up, supporting them.
Davina:Right.
Speaker 3:Do and we think we're supposed to graduate law school and step into a into a courtroom and naturally be brilliant and not have to deal with all this psychological stuff that comes up naturally, not to mention our nervous systems and how we've evolved as humans and how, you know, the parasympathetic nervous system that makes us wanna freeze or fight or flee when that is not an option when you're in the home of a corner.
Davina:And if you're fighting and then you're exhausted after, and you're like, how can I can't sustain this because it's exhausting? Totally.
Speaker 3:Totally unsustainable. I mean, there is so much, especially as women, that we have to deal with. We have to deal with microaggression. We have to deal with, bias, implicit, explicit bias. We have to deal with how the culture and how most people perceive and don't like powerful women.
Speaker 3:We have to deal with the fact that we don't have enough mentors or role models. We have to deal with the fact that we get zero education or training in what's happening to us when we're under these circumstances, and yet we hold ourselves to the highest standard. It's like we should be able to just be brilliant, walk into a courtroom, then blow them away. Yeah. No.
Davina:You mentioned, politics earlier. And I I back when it was Hillary and Trump, Donald Trump are running against each other. I had someone say to me, a female coach said to me, she goes, you know, that the amount of judgment that you can take and be okay, is really the barometer of your success, right? It really is the measurement of your if because the more judgment you can take them, the sky's the limit, there are no limits. If you could take the judgment, and she was using though both of those people as an example of 2 people who could take an enormous amount of judgment.
Davina:So they could take all the vitriol, all the hate, all the things justified, not justified depends on your viewpoint. But the amount of judgment both of them can take is what allowed them to reach that level of power and influence. And so we look at ourselves. And I think one of the things that is the big challenge is, let's take it down to social media. Can I appear on social media?
Davina:Or can I appear on a podcast? Can I say things that are controversial? Can I show up looking a certain way? Can I show up speaking a certain way? And be okay, if people say a bunch of nasty things to me or offensive things to me or whatever in that kind of environment?
Davina:If I can be okay, then, then because I know it really has no meaning in my own life and everything, then how powerful can I be? Right? And that's where you see these celebrities who go out, Kanye, you know, like these people who go out and they do outrageous Yeah. And that makes them more and more money, you know? That's right.
Davina:And and so I do think that, and I think that is, that's something that requires practice and putting yourself out there over and over again, and then doing the inner work to deal with those things, you know. But this type of ability to persuade and express our views in the world and feel good about it and feel comfortable about it. That's not really limited just to people who want to be litigators in a courtroom. There, it shows up in so many aspects of our lives, even if we live a quiet life, where we're not wanting to be in the public eye and be these paid speakers. Yeah, right.
Davina:Where we're not going to be in a courtroom. We don't want to be in a courtroom. Right? That's not what we want to do. We don't want to be a paid public speaker.
Davina:It's not what we want to do. This type of training and education is still incredibly valuable. And tell us why.
Speaker 3:Well, I think first of all, for our own peace of mind, it's really some of the best training that I've given myself was training in what's called this new emerging field called somatic experiencing,
Davina:where we
Speaker 3:really learn on an intellectual and on a felt experience level, how our nervous systems process our our perception of stress, okay, and learning how to find safety in ourselves so that we can face the the difficult circumstances, the opposition to ourselves and our ideas, the feeling of being on the spot, and not I'm gonna speak colloquially, Hayley colloquially here, not lose our shit so that we can stay composed. Right? And we can we can really move on. I I and and be powerful and persuasive notwithstanding whatever just came our way because the more powerful we we believe we can be and the more, like you were saying a moment ago, the more we take a stand for whatever it is we want, whether it's for ourselves or for a client or for what, the more opposition, the big shoulders to be able to handle that because like you were saying, the only way to really reach success and get results is to be able to endure that. And I feel like that requires a normalization of the psychological and the physiological, highly sensational feelings that we experience when we assert ourselves powerfully.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense?
Davina:Absolutely. Absolutely. I get what you're saying. And it and it It's an inner it's an inner calm and an inner confidence. Right?
Davina:An inner calm just gonna say.
Speaker 3:Yes. I yeah. It's you have to have 2 things to be truly powerful. You have to be you have to understand the skills that it takes to be persuasive and influential, and then that's the external component. And then you need the internal component.
Speaker 3:You need to understand, like, and how to manage your own emotions and understand what's happening in your body, these high sensations that you experience when you're asserting your right to be powerful, doing
Davina:your job, whatever it is. And I could just see where that can benefit you in so many places in your life. Even if you don't wanna be the, you know, out in front of a large audience, let's say even if you don't want to just in, you know, but the conversations around the dinner table, with a mixed family, you know, a family with different viewpoints and opinions on things, right? Or like you said, even with the cashier or with a store manager or whatever, even when you're just moving through the world, or if you're dating or in or you're in a relationship, just the way that you sort of can, if you can better express your point of view and your ideas, then stay calm and confident in that. That alone is just going to make you a more powerful, influential person, because it's the ability to serve in control those emotional responses and reactions.
Davina:Right? Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me about you've you started this program. So tell me about the program.
Speaker 3:Yes. Well, the program, covers a lot of what you and I have been discussing, but we go much more into detail. It's it's called the Art of Influence featuring the Power Labs. So it's got 2 components. 1 is the intellectual, instructional side where I teach my participants or students, whatever you wanna call them, how to be, what what are the elements of being a persuasive magnetic charismatic speaker, even if you're introverted and terrified.
Speaker 3:Right? Mhmm. Okay. I teach them how to handle the high sensation of speaking up and speaking out. Like, what is actually occurring in your nervous system?
Speaker 3:What are the limiting beliefs and what emotions do you have that are over coupled with the experience of asserting your right to be powerful or speaking up or leading or taking a visible role, whether it's on social media or, wherever it is. Right? At in line in front of the cashier at the grocery store. And I also teach elements of storytelling. So storytelling, how to use story as a way to, connect with other people, how to connect with other people deeply and why that's important, why it's important for us to slow down so that we can feel ourselves so that we can intuit what other people are feeling.
Speaker 3:And then when we're in one of these situations that requires that we we respond or speak publicly or be visible, we can manage our own emotions so that we can be effective when we're speaking. And we talk a lot about emotional intelligence, which, more important for being a effective leader. You need to understand all of these things. And I'm telling you, it could be several several universe level courses, but I try to distill it all down into the bite sized pieces that people can digest so they can at least go, uh-huh. Oh, I get it.
Speaker 3:I can do this. I can learn this. I can practice this. And so that's the that's the art of influence. And then I also, in the PowerLab, we actually do practice it.
Speaker 3:We talk. We we meet either virtually or in person, and I have an in per I have an in person event coming up very soon, but I've held these PowerLab sessions virtually before this fall. And basically what we do is we practice, using the principles of nonviolent communication and authentic relating, speaking our truths under under highly sensational circumstances, like uncomfortable truths, being honest about who it is that we are. And once you develop, you start to develop that muscle, it becomes so much easier to do it for ourselves in the real world and real life, and so much easier to do it on behalf of other people, for example, when we're lawyers. And I use these skills when not just in courtrooms, but when I'm writing, when I'm writing to opponents.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'll tell you, Divina, I have one motions based on emails the other side has attached their moving papers because I knew what to say and how to say it, and the judge read it. And I won based on that.
Davina:Right. Right. It's so powerful. It's so powerful. Tell tell me a little bit about you also have a podcast.
Davina:Tell me about your podcast. The name of your podcast, Rome Howell, is how you start start the name of your podcast. Tell me about that. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3:To me. Okay. Well, I first I started podcasting or I did a little podcast experiment in 20 well, let's go back to the 2016 election. So it was 8 years ago, and I was so sick and tired of the conflict and the conversation that I was hearing. Right?
Speaker 3:I mean, I thought there was gonna be a civil war event, so imagine what I think now. And I decided I'm gonna change the conversation and podcasting was sort of it had been around, but it hadn't exploded yet. I thought, well, maybe I'll do a podcast. And so I just decided to have positive conversations with people that I was curious about, about, their lives and what made them successful and what made them tick. And, so I named it Rome Howell because I love wolves, I love dogs, I love wolves, and Rome was like me, is a metaphor for exploring and howl is a metaphor for sharing what I was discovering.
Speaker 3:So that's Rome Howl. And, I've I've morphed that podcast. I mean, I've done I've done it. I've not done it. I break every podcast rule.
Speaker 3:People still listen. It's fun. It's it's when I feel like recording something I just do or then I write a bunch of episodes and I never record them. I'm crazy. I'm doing so many things.
Speaker 3:It's impossible for me to, like, keep that podcast going consistently. So don't worry. I'm not a huge competitor of yours for example. But lately, I've been sharing my ideas about about this and, but I've also I enjoy writing. I have a newsletter called The Edge Optimize You where I share some of these ideas.
Speaker 3:And yeah. So I'm doing I'm doing a lot of things, and I'm very, very happy that way.
Davina:Yeah. Yeah. I I think podcasting is a great vehicle too. If you're a creative person and you have ideas and subjects you wanna talk about and points of view, I think it's a wonderful or if you just love having conversation with people, that's one of the things that I love about podcasting is being able to have conversations with people in the ear, you know, all kinds of things you otherwise not might not be exposed to. Right.
Davina:And so that's great. I was curious about the name because I was like, that's so interesting. And I was of course interpreting because it's left for interpretation for other people as well. And we interpret how we, you know, how we view the world. And I thought the idea of this I know you will so much is about speaking and influencing.
Davina:Now I thought how is such a great word for the that because it's really because think about like, when you hear dogs howling, I mean, that's such a raw experience of them expressing their voices. And they don't, they do it naturally and all that. And I thought, what a great way to talk about speaking for humans as well. Like, what if we could really put our authentic self out there through our voice, and, and that authentic point of view. And so I love that.
Davina:And I wanted to just drop that in for somebody that hasn't checked it out your podcast yet. They can go check that out. That's right. Tell us how we can connect with you, find you, find out more about your program, and we'll include these links in the show notes as well.
Speaker 3:Right. Okay. So it's really pretty easy. I have a website that it sort of summarizes my work, and it's jenniferbgardner.com. And there's a link there to the Art of Influence.
Speaker 3:There's a pop up on that website that will allow people to opt in to receive The Edge newsletter, and you can find me on LinkedIn at jenniferbgardner, and you can find me at Instagram, at I am jenniferbgardner, and the links are there to join the wait list for the art of influence, which I'm going to be, launching again soon. And, but just get on the wait list because then you'll know before I do it. I do them very spontaneously depending on my litigation schedule. And, you know, I'm super busy with, speaking and doing MCLEs on the topic. So, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Davina:Thank you. Thank you so much. And thanks for a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed a lot. And for being here today.
Davina:I I really had great fun.
Speaker 3:Oh, so did I. Thank you for the opportunity. It's been so good, so much fun, so great to meet you and, such a great conversation. And thanks for having me.
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